Remembering Abe Rich

ELBeau

ELBeau

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
One year ago today, Abe Rich of Star Cue MFG died in Miami on November 25, 2008 at age 82. He was voted into the International Cuemakers Association Hall of Fame after that.

"Abe was born in Lithuania on July 21, 1926 to Chiam and Hodel Rutschaisky, who were tragically killed in the Holocaust. After being liberated from the Dachau concentration camp, Abe immigrated to the new Jewish state of Israel to help build the country's infrastructure. During his time in Israel, he built roads and laid pipes that brought water to the Negev dessert. After working for 10 years helping to establish Israel, Abe came to the United States. Being a highly skilled and talented WOODTURNER--a trade he learned from his father--he was taken in as an apprentice by his Uncle and Cousin, both famous pool cue makers in New York. After honing his craft, Abe moved to Miami Beach and developed a fabulous worldwide reputation for building custom pool cues, first under the name "Florida Cue" and then later "Star Cue Manufacturing". Abe's cues were not only simplistically beautiful, made from the most precious exotic hardwoods from all over the world, but played well and stayed straight for years. He is survived, not only by an extended loving family, but by a family of pool and billiard enthusiasts around the world. "
~Published in The Miami Herald from November 28 to November 30, 2008

If anyone has any stories or photos of Abe or his cues, it seems this would be an great place to post.
 
My first 3 cues were all Abe Rich cues. He made one helluva sneaky pete. He had that shop over on South Beach and we use to go over there all the time and sweat his amazing wood collection. Exotic hardwoods stacked to the ceiling curing over the course of decades. I wonder who got all that wood from his estate.
 
i've posted this pic before, but it never gets old -
 

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here's a couple more of abe rich's cues - the middle and right side in the pic -

a 4 pointer that you won't see too often and a florida cue.
 

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Wild nylon wrap on that Florida cue. That's from Early in Abe's career!
I heard there was an article on abe in Inside Pool in September, but couldn't find the issue online. Does anyone know if it is available?
 
I live near Abe's old shop and went there several times , he was a real character ...he worked on a couple of my cues and I bought some cheaper cues from him as well as cases , chalk etc .....I wish I would have gotten on of his cues though .....
 
My first two cues were from Abe. I spoke to him for a long time while I was there. Just a real nice guy. I gave the one to an old girlfriend (MISTAKE) and the other was stolen. It was cocobolo. Beautiful.
 
Bump for Abe Rich. ICA Hall of Fame Cuemaker, on the second anniversary of his passing.
 
It was a great honor to contribute to his biography for the Blue Book of Cue Values 3rd ed. I have a cue Abe built in 1960. Straight and solid...a great player even by today's standards.
 
He was a pretty cool guy. I would go see him whenever I was in Miami Beach. I bought the last cue he made.
 
My first custom cue was a Rich cue I bought in Dayton in the mid 60's. It was either Zebrawood or Rosewood, I'm not sure which, with no points and a nice linen wrap. It looked damn good and played good too. I won a lot of money (for that era) with that cue. I let a down on his luck pool player stay with me (after I had moved to California) and he repaid me by stealing my stuff (including my cue) and taking off back to Ohio, where we were both originally from.

I won't put his name on here because he still comes around DCC once in a while. I saw him again for the first time like 25 years later. He apologized to me but never made any attempt to make it right. You know who you are P.H. You should have offered to repay me when you saw me but you didn't. I hold no malice now but I will never forget that experience, or you.
 
since you're all gathered here....

these pictures are from Precision Billiards Gallery. Scott refers to it simply as a Rich Cue.

I have seen this cue identified elsewhere as an Abe Rich Cue.
Although not a typical example of his kind of clunky but excellent playing cues. (Not my words)

Could one of you guys who knew his work straighten this out for me?
 

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I once called Abe and he had two cues from the 70's that he built then, but just reworked. I asked him to ship me one and he refused. He told me the only way I could get one of his cues was to come down. I lived 700 miles away, but it made no difference to him. Well I asked the wife how she would like to visit the Keys and off to Florida we went. I bought one of the two cues and as a cuemaker myself walking into his shop was like stepping back in history 40 years. He had a single wood turning lathe and a few pieces of wood working equipment. Yet he had thousands of pieces of wood that he had hand turned round over the years. Although he was rarely building any cues at the time, he still did not want to sell any cue parts or wood because he was afraid it would help his competition. He would not sell the inventory without me buying the whole shop with a promise to keep the business going right where it was. He felt a loyalty to his repair customers and did not want them to have to go to the suburbs to get repair work done. If I had wanted to live in Miami Beach I might have bought it. But I am a country living type of guy and would never have wanted to live there very long.
 
cueman said:
I once called Abe and he had two cues from the 70's that he built then, but just reworked. I asked him to ship me one and he refused. He told me the only way I could get one of his cues was to come down. I lived 700 miles away, but it made no difference to him. Well I asked the wife how she would like to visit the Keys and off to Florida we went. I bought one of the two cues and as a cuemaker myself walking into his shop was like stepping back in history 40 years. He had a single wood turning lathe and a few pieces of wood working equipment. Yet he had thousands of pieces of wood that he had hand turned round over the years. Although he was rarely building any cues at the time, he still did not want to sell any cue parts or wood because he was afraid it would help his competition. He would not sell the inventory without me buying the whole shop with a promise to keep the business going right where it was. He felt a loyalty to his repair customers and did not want them to have to go to the suburbs to get repair work done. If I had wanted to live in Miami Beach I might have bought it. But I am a country living type of guy and would never have wanted to live there very long.
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Very interesting and definitely old school. There are many production cues that I own but I do not own a Rich cue. They come up on auction sites fairly regularly, maybe its time to go after one.

Do you know what happened to his shop and inventory?
 
I had this Abe Rich blank finished out not long ago with a tribute on the butt. This is a Great Playing cue.
 

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Cuebuddy said:
Very interesting and definitely old school. There are many production cues that I own but I do not own a Rich cue. They come up on auction sites fairly regularly, maybe its time to go after one.

Do you know what happened to his shop and inventor

Cuebuddy,Be aware that there are Abe Rich Cues( Florida Cues and Star Cues) and Rich Cues ( Rich Qs of New York). Rich Qs was his uncles company and was into production cues. Abe's cues were custom.

Everybody confuses the issue by referring to both as Rich Cues. There is a difference in quality and value.

See my earlier post on this thread trying to get it straight on a particular
cue.
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I bought my first real cue when I got out of the Navy late in 1972 from Brant Billiards in Miami. It was one of Abe's Rich cues. When I got it, it had about a 13 1/4 mm shaft which I brought to Abe and had him take it down to about 12.5 for me. It was the first time I had ever seen a cue shop of any kind and at the time never realized where life would take me.
 
Cuebuddy said:
Very interesting and definitely old school. There are many production cues that I own but I do not own a Rich cue. They come up on auction sites fairly regularly, maybe its time to go after one.

Do you know what happened to his shop and inventory?
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A cuemaker and a backer bought it all.
 
ELBeau said:
If anyone has any stories or photos of Abe or his cues, it seems this would be an great place to post.
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If you can find it online, InsidePOOL Magazine has an article on Abe Rich. It's one of my favorite articles.

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you what month it came out. And my copy of the magazine is an unfortunate casualty of war.

Fred <~~~ not a fan of war
 
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