Vintage Minnesota fats tables

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
I posted it in the "pool table and accessories section. I assume the mechanics would have seen it. If I'm wrong in assuming this thanks for informing me. I stand corrected. I've only been hanging around her since April. I'll get a post over to the mechanics as soon soon as I can.

Good job:thumbup:
 

His Boy Elroy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Wrong, we don't pay much attention to that forum, which is why I told you to post in the "Talk to a mechanic" section, but now I'll just go ahead and post my feelings about the table you're talking about. Wouldn't own one, and can't pay me enough to work on one...does that answer you're question about the quality of the table you're so willing to believe is a much desired table to own today...as it SHOULD be worth so much with inflation and all factored in...right? I'll tell you this also about tables that have real slate used on them....most of them are junk to, and just because it has a real slate don't mean it's worth a crap, because I'd put about 90% of all the tables built in the last 75 years as mostly all junk, with the exception of some of the Brunswick commercial pool tables...which explains why they're still around 75 years later. Most pool tables end up in the dump over time, which is what was intended when they were built at the time, so that they could all be replaced at a later date...and not sold against.

Want the truth, ask your questions of those that WORK on tables, just like the one you have, see what THEY have to say about it...as that's the truth from a mechanic's point of view...and not a bystander!



Glen
Wow! Wow! What in God's name are some of you so bitter about .This is getting ridiculous! I think this is a pool forum if If I'm not mistaken. Pool enthusiasts come here to relax and talk about pool. A few posters respectfully stated that they found it hard to believe that Fats tables are high quality. They gave no evidence.

I countered with the argument that any table that someone paid $600 for in 1971 had to be high quality. Why else would it cost $600 which translates to $3640 in today's money. Now let me repeat; although I countered with an argument, it was not a red-faced rant. Lou Figueroa countered that he didn't believe that it was high quality and while he didn't provide any evidence for his belief he told me that it is quite possible to pay good money for a table and get low quality. And when he told me that I don't think it was a red faced rant on his part.

If he or any other civil minded people want to argue with me, I'll argue back in a civil manner. I only insult people if they insult me first. In fact, that's the wrong tactic. I'll just ignore them in the future. Wow!
 
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His Boy Elroy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
'Elroy',

If it's a slate bed it's fine. It's not a cheap MDF table. Like you said that $600 from 1971 is like $3500 today.

If possible shoot those rail shots I suggested to test the rail 'bouncyness'.
You may want to replace the rails & then maybe not.

In a way I would like to get a 'nicer' table than my Sport King, but...my Dad & I bought it together. I'll see a burn 'stain' on a rail, not from him, but from the bar room where we got it, & it reminds me of him because he smoked. I lost him in 1978. The table is priceless to me & it's value could never be replaced. I hope it will be the same for my children as well.

Best Wishes,
Rick
Rick,
Yeah, I'm going to replace the cushions. They definitely need to be replaced. I hear you about getting attached to the table. I'm the same way.
 

michael4

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
any table that someone paid $600 for in 1971 had to be high quality.

I paid $6000 in 1971 for an AMC Gremlin :thumbup:


All joking aside, sounds like the mechanics think 90% of tables are of average to low quality. Also sounds like no one has any detailed info to tell you about your table, yet you have had many enjoyable years with it, I would say thats $600 well spent.
 

upindaklub

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Tony, you're right...most of us mechanic's don't pay to much attention to the product review section, which is why I told him to post up in the Talk to a Mechanic section, but still as of yet, seen nothing from him;)

Glen, just tell the guy what you know plz and stop busting his ball$
 

xplor

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Do you remember the model? Was it a Gold Cup that looked like a Gold Crown with 1”slate ? Maybe it was “The Hustler or Pacer” They were built by Rozel industries.
 

Tony_in_MD

You want some of this?
Silver Member
What is that in today's money, 30 large?


I paid $6000 in 1971 for an AMC Gremlin :thumbup:


All joking aside, sounds like the mechanics think 90% of tables are of average to low quality. Also sounds like no one has any detailed info to tell you about your table, yet you have had many enjoyable years with it, I would say thats $600 well spent.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.
 

His Boy Elroy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I think the only solution to this is I'm going to gave to find someone with a smartphone who will post a photograph of it.
 

ENGLISH!

Banned
Silver Member
FYI, the AMF grand prix table was an excellent table, not dissimilar to a gold crown.

Now that you say that, that might be the type table on which my Dad introduced me to the game.

It was at a bowling alley.

Did it have an off white & a blue, pale green or light gold base?

That was 47 years ago but some pistures are coming back to mind.

Best Wishes,
Rick
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
Wow! Wow! What in God's name are some of you so bitter about .This is getting ridiculous! I think this is a pool forum if If I'm not mistaken. Pool enthusiasts come here to relax and talk about pool. A few posters respectfully stated that they found it hard to believe that Fats tables are high quality. They gave no evidence.

I countered with the argument that any table that someone paid $600 for in 1971 had to be high quality. Why else would it cost $600 which translates to $3640 in today's money. Now let me repeat; although I countered with an argument, it was not a red-faced rant. Lou Figueroa countered that he didn't believe that it was high quality and while he didn't provide any evidence for his belief he told me that it is quite possible to pay good money for a table and get low quality. And when he told me that I don't think it was a red faced rant on his part.

If he or any other civil minded people want to argue with me, I'll argue back in a civil manner. I only insult people if they insult me first. In fact, that's the wrong tactic. I'll just ignore them in the future. Wow!

Trust me, I'm not bitter at all, but why are you still talking about this table in this forum...without taking the time to ask the Professionals the same questions about the quality of this table that you would so adimitly defend as HIGH quality?
 

Mr. Bond

Orbis Non Sufficit
Gold Member
Silver Member
I think the only solution to this is I'm going to gave to find someone with a smartphone who will post a photograph of it.

I didn't realize that you were looking for proof of something.
If you like, I can pull some old ads for the Fats table line for you to see.
Generally speaking they were indeed intended to be "budget minded" tables.
(Lots of plastic, MDF, etc)
The expensive (and presumably nice) ones were the exception rather than the rule.
If we get lucky, we might even find documentation for your table model.
 

His Boy Elroy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I didn't realize that you were looking for proof of something.
If you like, I can pull some old ads for the Fats table line for you to see.
Generally speaking they were indeed intended to be "budget minded" tables.
(Lots of plastic, MDF, etc)
The expensive (and presumably nice) ones were the exception rather than the rule.
If we get lucky, we might even find documentation for your table model.
I'd appreciate it if you could do that. Thank you.
 

CantEverWin

"The One"
Silver Member
I understand the theory that if something has a high price tag that it must also be of high quality.
If only the world worked that way...
There are tons of products that don't live up to there price tag. Prices are based upon what people believe they can sell it for. That doesn't have anything to do with its quality. Value is just so subjective.
The billiards industry seems to be one of the worst in my opinion. Walking into a billiards and bar stools is proof positive. They should just hand out a jar of Vaseline at the door.

The OP may have a great table. I don't have a clue. I guess it depends on what one considers great. He stated he's probably only played 2 hours on tables that were not his home table. So I'm not sure if he really knows the differences. I see people running around calling diamonds the best thing going, and I can't get it for the life of me.

Elroy, if your goal is to get people to believe you're playing on a quality table you're going about it wrong. RealKingCobra is considered to have a lot of knowlage in that field. It seems like you're not aware of who is who on here. If you want info on a table he's one of the few you should be asking.
What your doing is kind of like telling Archer to shut up, so you can ask others how to shoot a shot.
Just slow down bud. If you want to ask questions, it shouldn't be because you only want a certain answer.
 

His Boy Elroy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I understand the theory that if something has a high price tag that it must also be of high quality.
If only the world worked that way...
There are tons of products that don't live up to there price tag. Prices are based upon what people believe they can sell it for. That doesn't have anything to do with its quality. Value is just so subjective.
The billiards industry seems to be one of the worst in my opinion. Walking into a billiards and bar stools is proof positive. They should just hand out a jar of Vaseline at the door.

The OP may have a great table. I don't have a clue. I guess it depends on what one considers great. He stated he's probably only played 2 hours on tables that were not his home table. So I'm not sure if he really knows the differences. I see people running around calling diamonds the best thing going, and I can't get it for the life of me.

Elroy, if your goal is to get people to believe you're playing on a quality table you're going about it wrong. RealKingCobra is considered to have a lot of knowlage in that field. It seems like you're not aware of who is who on here. If you want info on a table he's one of the few you should be asking.
What your doing is kind of like telling Archer to shut up, so you can ask others how to shoot a shot.
Just slow down bud. If you want to ask questions, it shouldn't be because you only want a certain answer.
Early in the evening, activity started up in the thread and I'm getting slammed from several directions. Meanwhile I have other business I have to attend to in the home. I'm trying my best to get back to the computer and keep up with things. Now I'm getting slammed from King Cobra for not contacting him. I've only been hanging around here since April. I've never heard of him, although one poster did suggest I contact the mechanics and I did not follow up on his suggestion. So King decides to tell me what he thinks of my table in the main forum. Seems he's not fond of it's quality. That's O.K. I just wasn't particularly fond of the way he said it.

While I was making the claim that it was a quality table, I will now concede that I am not a pool table expert and I am not qualified to judge whether or not it is a quality table. After conceding that, I will now say that when I used the word "quality" I did not mean it in the way it was perceived by some.

Minnessota Fats tables are sold mostly in department stores. Most posters are totally unaware that there was a much more expensive line of Fats tables sold at dealerships. Whether it be cars, bicycles, or pool tables, If it is sold at a dealership and is much more expensive than a department store model, it usually is better than a department store model. As I said, in most posters minds when they hear "Fats" tables they think department store. When I said "quality," I meant, sold at dealership and much
more expensive than department store.

When something is sold at at at a dealership and is expensive, it definitely is suppose to be quality. I'm well aware that's not always the case. As I said I'm not a pool table expert. I'can't judge whether my table is quality or not and also what qualifies as quality differs from one person to the next. So what I should have said is that it belongs to the genre of tables that are supposed to be quality.

So is it quality? I will now concede I don't know. I've read Lou Figueroa . He's a very knowledgeable pool guy. He concedes the possibility that it could be quality, but he's mostly doubtful. The reason seems to be that he's unaware of the existence of the Fats line of dealership sold, expensive line of tables and if they were quality he'd know about. He is a very knowledgeable guy. I have no problems with those thoughts. A couple of knuckle heads insisted in a knuckle headed manner that it could not possibly be quality because they too were not aware that such a line of tables existed.

Then came King Cobra. He's the very first guy who's posted and known anything about these tables. He believes they are of low quality. The thing is, he doesn't seem to believe there are many tables on the market that are not of low quality. As I said, I didn't care for The way King Cobra said things, so I didn't post him as I intended. But later on he posted me and told me I should. So I did. I have a post sitting over there in the mechanics section right now.

So to those of you who have read this and believe that time in life is precious and believe they have been unjustly robbed of that which is precious.....sorry!
 

BasementDweller

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Now that you say that, that might be the type table on which my Dad introduced me to the game.

It was at a bowling alley.

Did it have an off white & a blue, pale green or light gold base?

That was 47 years ago but some pistures are coming back to mind.

Best Wishes,
Rick

I have an old AMF Grand Prix but not for long (thanks to Mark Griffin for identifying it for me). Here's a clip of me shooting on it. You can't see the table perfectly in this video. You can see that somehow the previous owner lost one of the counters. At the time I thought I would be able to purchase a replacement. I've had no luck finding one.

The table doesn't look too bad in the video but it's seen better days. Someone busted up the rails pretty bad when they redid it. It's obvious whoever redid the table way back when didn't know what they were doing. When they put the feather stripping back on they wacked the heck out of the rails. Pretty much ruining them.. Plus the center slate is cracked from one side to the other.

Anyway, it has been a pretty good practice table for me but it's time to upgrade.

I bet they were pretty good tables back in the day.

http://youtu.be/drbbyFtAa3Q

***Edit***

I just came across the old advertisement for this table.
 

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