If Leane didn’t present the Barbour’s thread as one of SM’s tools and didn’t know he used it to repair his clothing, why did he have it photographed?
Continuing on the theme …….
Go back to the time DS Leane visited the School of Arts, North Terrace Adelaide to have a chat with Mr Gray the headmaster about certain items that had been found in the suitcase. Items Gray subsequently thought were tools used for cutting zinc stencils, as in by a ship’s 3rd Officer. The implication here is that Leane only showed him the cut-down table knife, scissors, the small square of tinned zinc and the particle brush. There is no mention of Leane showing Gray the card of waxed thread. Similarly, there is no mention of Gray considering the thread as one of the Somerton Man’s tools.
This, in all probability meant the police didn’t think the waxed thread was one of Keane’s tools of trade and they mounted it purely as an item that may have helped identify T Keane as a man who was known to repair his clothing with a heavy duty waxed tan thread rather than a lighter one, this being a distinctive habit that a woman might recognise, his wife say, or girlfriend, his mother, sister, aunt or grandmother. Someone who knew his name as well as his ways. On the face of it, a valid decision.
Which brings us to the day DS Leane first examined the suitcase and it’s contents before taking the above items back to his office to be pin-mounted and photographed (pic), as it wasn’t until some weeks later after taking the Somerton Man’s clothing away for examination when Professor Cleland found that the waxed thread had been used by SM to refit a few buttons on the trousers he was wearing, sow up a trouser pocket in the suitcase and repair a coat collar where it had given away.
So, if Leane didn’t present the thread as a tool and didn’t know it had been used to repair SM’s clothing, what other reason might he have had to include it in the photograph?
No needle
The Somerton Man 
Did the thread card show the same ‘face’ on both sides?
Don’t know mate, what’s the relevance?
Just thought, like Byron, that there might be something written, I know a long shot and, highly unlikely. Do we know if Lionel wrote any memoirs?
Highly unlikely yes, apart from the company blurb, and memoirs no .. be helpful though, wouldn’t it ?