I didn’t come along until Dale was only eBay. I have heard good things about the cues he personally built. I’d love to talk to him about his business model and how he feels about his reputation.
From my experience, he was a 1st class A Hole. He treated me so horrible on this one deal. Sent me a sneaky pete cue, that was like the biggest POS that I ever held in my hand, and it somehow got a crack in the butt, that was not my doing, and he blamed me. Said that it must have been my fault, and refused to give me a full refund.
On another occasion, when I called him up (about a different purchase, that happened years earlier), he acted like such an Egotistical A Hole, and laughed at me, during part of the phone call.
His cues, after maybe 2003-2005, that he sold on ebay, were pure garbage, from my few experiences with them.
But, anyways, yeah, his early cues played amazing, and were very high quality, I thought.