Rambow

I haven't really been answering these sort of threads lately but I'll take a stab at it since nobody responded.

I don't suppose he knows the origin of the cue or the chain of ownership? So I would guess it's a 1960's era based on the way the ivory butt is configured. It's a typical Titleist conversion and it looks to me like Rambow himself did the lettering (others were lettered by a calligrapher). Probably closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

If this cue belonged to James J. DeCesari, he was a reputed gangster tied in with the mob in Chicago, where Rambow had his shop. See "Juries Probe Mob" in the link below - James DeCesari is gambling figure from the south side linked to the Chicago syndicate.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1970/04/21/page/14/article/juries-probe-mob

It's not a very common name, the age was right (50 years old in 1970) so I think there is a very good chance this is him. Also, with the initials James J. DeCesari, it goes along with the shaft lettering, so it most likely is the guy.

What helps the value is the ivory butt and "made by Rambow" lettering, which does not always appear on personalized cues. What hurts the value is the abundant black marks on the cue may never come out. Those are from storing the cue in a case with a black dyed lining and the dye was transferred. The stuff goes pretty deep and is likely well into the wood.

The value of the cue is likely in the $2,000 to $2,500 auction value range and I would say it's in average condition based on the pics.

Now all of this may be true, or none of it may be true. Likely none of it can be verified. I am just looking at a picture of a cue and my mind just wanders and wanders...

Awesome piece of history! However, if this goes to eBay, it doesn't crack $1500

Very cool cue, and the possible provenance is definitely cool. If I owned it, I would try to nail that down for sure. Ivory butt cap and some provenance definitely help this cue.

The condition...well, less than ideal. It is intact. First two things I saw were the finish and staining and the brass joint that somebody tried to clean. Collectively, that isn't patina nor is it wear. It is less that optimal care. It wasn't truly abused though, that would be worse.

I generally stay away from the value issue. But there have been a number of Rambow cues available lately, and some pretty nice ones to boot. Increased availability tends to drive prices down.


Tate is right in an ideal world. Definitely if the thing is insured cover it for 3 grand.

Sadly, I think the reality is more like what Ideologist said.


Maybe, with a little LIGHT cleaning up to make it more presentable, that could help. I will say that the cleaning of the brass detracted in my view. If I was a buyer I would be begging for the cue to not be touched any further. Any cleaning could go either way with value. Personally, I wouldn't mess with one tiny thing on it, just make sure it's cared fro correctly from now on.

Also, nailing down and seriously documenting the provenance could also help the value. There are people that collect gangster related memorabilia. That opens an entire additional market to perhaps boost value.

So, those are my rambling thoughts on the matter.

I am very happy to see the cue here and as well Tate's contribution on the possible provenance. It made for an interesting morning read. As he said...looking at the cue my mind wanders and wanders...

I have a feeling that this cue was witness to more than just a few money games, and likely witness to more than just gambling at that. If it could talk we may never have seen it. :wink::grin:


I wonder if this cue knows where Jimmy Hoffa is?





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Great write-up Tate.
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when iwas just a kid,my first cue was a Rambow,my first nice cue
I always think of that cue and order Hoppe butt cues
But i remember that the ring seemed smaller on my Rambow

By looking at these pictures . I now see that the white ring was smaller

If the cue and newspaper article go together< I would pay $1200
for the cue,which is a fair price

I am curious if the ring was ivory or some white substitute

deanoc said:

when iwas just a kid,my first cue was a Rambow,my first nice cue
I always think of that cue and order Hoppe butt cues
But i remember that the ring seemed smaller on my Rambow

By looking at these pictures . I now see that the white ring was smaller

If the cue and newspaper article go together< I would pay $1200
for the cue,which is a fair price

I am curious if the ring was ivory or some white substitute

Click to expand...

Good catch dean. Knowing how much you love pictures there are a ton of pics
of old Hoppes with an ivory ring online. The original proportions were
1/4 inch thick +/- ivory ring backed by 1/8 or less black fibre.

Somewhere around about 1953 they stopped using ivory and went to the standard 3/8 inch black fibre.

Dale

I haven't thought about this in a long time. For some reason this discussion evoked a memory for me. Back around 1985 my mother was living in a little "coal Patch" town in Pennsylvania. Barely a village. It had a little store where my mother worked, an auto repair shop, and a little pizza place. That pizza place had a Valley coin table. I was dating a girl in that town I met while stating with my mother occasionally, I had taken that year off after my forst year of college and was bumming around figuring out what I was going to do with my life. It was around then that I got my old Joss with a Fellini case from my buddy for $35, So I started playing pool.

I used to take my girlfriend to the pizza place for pool and pizza. It was so small. They had two stools at the counter and the pool table. That was it. Some of the local guys hung around there. They didn't like me much because I was dating the prettiest girl in town and I was an outsider. In fact she was a Ms Teen Pennsylvania.

Anyway, they had 10 or 12 cues, about half were playable. The rest had no tip and/or severe rattles. A couple of them were crappy Italian made cues. A couple were Valley cues, and a few old four point cues that could have been anything. And there was one two piece cue. I remember it fairly well. At the time it was just another cue we could not use because it had no tip. I had a look at it a few times but I didn't know anything about cues. If I remember correctly it had belonged to the old man that owned the place or to his brother...something like that.

That cue had four points with veneers that I now know were Titlist veneers. It had what I now believe was an ivory butt cap. It was very similar to the cue in the original post of this thread. I think it is very possible it was a Rambow.

I have not thought about that cue for decades.

I wonder if it is still there. The last time I passed through there was about 18 years ago on my Harley. I was on a bit of a road trip with my girlfriend from the Netherlands. I don't remember if the old pizza place was still there or not.

I wonder if that cue is still there...maybe forgotten in a closet....

Might be time to look up an old friends or two. I am going to Google to see if the place is still there. You never know....


Just went there on Google Earth. The pizza place was actually in a house converted to a commercial location. I don't see it. The town is pretty run down. Maybe it got torn down. Not sure...but the hunt is on. I will find out something......somehow.






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TATE said:

I haven't really been answering these sort of threads lately but I'll take a stab at it since nobody responded.

I don't suppose he knows the origin of the cue or the chain of ownership? So I would guess it's a 1960's era based on the way the ivory butt is configured. It's a typical Titleist conversion and it looks to me like Rambow himself did the lettering (others were lettered by a calligrapher). Probably closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

If this cue belonged to James J. DeCesari, he was a reputed gangster tied in with the mob in Chicago, where Rambow had his shop. See "Juries Probe Mob" in the link below - James DeCesari is gambling figure from the south side linked to the Chicago syndicate.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1970/04/21/page/14/article/juries-probe-mob

It's not a very common name, the age was right (50 years old in 1970) so I think there is a very good chance this is him. Also, with the initials James J. DeCesari, it goes along with the shaft lettering, so it most likely is the guy.

What helps the value is the ivory butt and "made by Rambow" lettering, which does not always appear on personalized cues. What hurts the value is the abundant black marks on the cue may never come out. Those are from storing the cue in a case with a black dyed lining and the dye was transferred. The stuff goes pretty deep and is likely well into the wood.

The value of the cue is likely in the $2,000 to $2,500 auction value range and I would say it's in average condition based on the pics.

Now all of this may be true, or none of it may be true. Likely none of it can be verified. I am just looking at a picture of a cue and my mind just wanders and wanders...

Click to expand...

Good work Tate
Interestingly enough, Herman's daughter was married to the Pranno family. Have a gander at their family history in Chicago organized crime.

Fortunately the Pranno that Loretta married was not directly involved in mob activity, but I can easily see Herman's name being passed around among the Italian elites who always wanted the " finest goods" available.

Every pool hall or room, no matter who the real owners were, fell into one gang's " territory" or another....so it didn't really matter if the owner wanted to be a part of the rivalry or not, as a business owner, you were subject to whoever held the power in your neighborhood, and it usually wasn't the cops.

If Capone comes in and wants a cue, he gets a cue.

Those who live in Chicagoland may have heard of the company Philips Flowers. ( stores all over Chicago suburbs)
They had shops in Chicago back during the mob reign. Goodfellas would stop by for a dozen roses and didn't expect to pay anything, over and over, so the Philip family ultimately moved their business out to the suburbs to avoid being shot for asking to get paid.

Perhaps, in a wild mob movie style move , Rambow was asked to make a cue for which a payment was never actually made. Perhaps it was for protection

I'm being a little facetious but you never know. Stranger things have happened. I just found out that Herman served on a grand jury in 1936. Can't wait to find out more about it.

deanoc said:

I am curious if the ring was ivory or some white substitute

Click to expand...

On this cue here, the ring is plastic but the buttcap is ivory. (Some had ivory on both). He went with this style, as near as I can tell, in the late 1950's. Before that he usually stacked a thin veneer or two above the buttcap.

Here's not only a great comparison cue, but an excellent write up by the original owner. He said he got the cue after the Hustler move was made (1961) , so that would be in the 1962 time period.

http://www.tampabilliards.com/herman_rambow.html

GoldCrown said:

This cue belongs to a gentleman I play in leagues with.

Click to expand...

The cue is apparently in Florida. A lot of gangesters "retired" to Florida.

Makes one wonder exactly who the "gentleman" owner of the cue is. :wink:


Obviously, we don't need to know his name...but any chance he's Italian.


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GoldCrown said:

I know nothing. Anything seen there, heard there or was there stays there:wink:.
I cannot say where the pictures were taken. I took an oath not to reveal. Florida is a distraction.
The person is a 1st class guy to play pool with. I hope he is reading and enjoying the thread.
He is not an AzB member. I asked for his permission to post pictures so the cue can be shown and researched.
Thanks for the replies. That's what makes AzB the interesting place it is. It's posters like you keep it alive.

Click to expand...

Well it was nice knowing you. :wink:

LINK






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I will disagree with most here and say this cue might not crack 1200, let alone 1500 or 2500. However I do believe this cue *should* be valued at 2250/2500. But that is not todays market, and on top of that, Rambow is the most over looked of all the classic cuemakers. We can all say we love Rambows, but very few will plunk down the money for them unless you HAD to have it for your collection. Plus, the guy just made a lot of cues, and most were plain like this. There are a few for sale and I just do not see them moving.
I believe all the butt material here is plastic. I do not see anything that makes me believe that big chuck is ivory, especially the color. But at this point, you might be better off if it ISN'T ivory.
This is another cue that would have fetched it's apex value in the 98-2005 time period. Like a Model T, all those that can appreciate it, are .... on the down side looking up...

JV

classiccues said:

I will disagree with most here and say this cue might not crack 1200, let alone 1500 or 2500. However I do believe this cue *should* be valued at 2250/2500. But that is not todays market, and on top of that, Rambow is the most over looked of all the classic cuemakers. We can all say we love Rambows, but very few will plunk down the money for them unless you HAD to have it for your collection. Plus, the guy just made a lot of cues, and most were plain like this. There are a few for sale and I just do not see them moving.
I believe all the butt material here is plastic. I do not see anything that makes me believe that big chuck is ivory, especially the color. But at this point, you might be better off if it ISN'T ivory.
This is another cue that would have fetched it's apex value in the 98-2005 time period. Like a Model T, all those that can appreciate it, are .... on the down side looking up...

JV

Click to expand...

Not long ago I played one pocket for a few hours with I mid 70's man originally from Chicago area. He had a Rambo that he had bought from Rambo himself.

This cue has been played since he bought it, still in decent shape except the wrap. What I found interesting were the points, there were no veneers.
I have looked and it seems plain points were rarely used by Rambo.

classiccues said:

I will disagree with most here and say this cue might not crack 1200, let alone 1500 or 2500. However I do believe this cue *should* be valued at 2250/2500. But that is not todays market, and on top of that, Rambow is the most over looked of all the classic cuemakers. We can all say we love Rambows, but very few will plunk down the money for them unless you HAD to have it for your collection. Plus, the guy just made a lot of cues, and most were plain like this. There are a few for sale and I just do not see them moving.
I believe all the butt material here is plastic. I do not see anything that makes me believe that big chuck is ivory, especially the color. But at this point, you might be better off if it ISN'T ivory.
This is another cue that would have fetched it's apex value in the 98-2005 time period. Like a Model T, all those that can appreciate it, are .... on the down side looking up...

JV

Click to expand...

I see no grain in that buttplate, so I would agree that it's probably plastic, even though Rambow did a lot of ivory buttplates. My guess would be an early version of Lucite or Implex material, whatever was available then. Also agree that these cues don't go for as much as we think they should. On Ebay, or even here, 1200 to 1500 would be my guess.

I also think this cue can be refinished to get rid of all the black residue, as these butts were usually made pretty thick. It would take a skilled repairman, but they're out there.

Nice cue, I like to see these old gems.

All the best,
WW

GoldCrown said:

This cue belongs to a gentleman I play in leagues with. We discussed this cue and would like to hear from collectors and knowledgable Rambow experts. It's in good condition. It's a player...shows some age/wear but overall condition is "GOOD". Not for sale but would appreciate a value. . Thanks for your help.

Click to expand...

If he decides to sell it I will offer $1,000 cash and he doesn't have to bother going online or anything else. It's a completely hassle free sale and he's done with it. I will take it as is, no questions asked.