I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Runde's son in college about a year or so after I started playing pool. I saw his son Matt playing, he was pretty good, and saw his cue. Asked him "What kind of cue is that?". He said a Schon, then said his dad made them. I'm like right, sure, whatever... Well, he did
Played with the cue, loved it. Up to that point I had either owned, traded, or tried out 2 Sailor cues, Huebler, Meucci, and a Mali. Matt and I became friends and played frequently together, then I met Bob, got a tour of the factory, and he sent me to a distributor to buy a cue but I got a great deal. Bob was a great guy, decent pool player too, always pleasant to talk to and certainly very knowledgable about the cue making business. Over the years I bought and sold or traded at least 5 or 6 Schons, and my playing partner years later must have had 20 of them. That first R6 I bought in 1987 or so is still one of the best hitting, solid cues I've ever hit with. When I finally found a later model Schon cue that hit pretty close, I stuck with it, and that would be the top cue you see pictured. As far as I know it was a special edition, only 1 or 2 made like it, not as fancy as some other cues I liked, especially some in this thread that look fantastic, but man does it hit good, almost like my R6.
FYI, I just started playing again after a 4 year layoff, and just found this website and have been reading through posts. Regarding some more info on Schon cues, everyone I met associated with the cues (Bob, Matt, Evan Clarke, Terry Romine, etc.) pronounces it "Shawn", not "Shone" or "Shurn". Also, for a while there Terry Romine, then part owner and now full owner (if that's still true), had seconds available in his pool room Romine's (still one of the largest and finest room's in the US that I've seen), and a lot of the league players and regulars took advantage of the deep discounts afforded, especially when often you could hardly tell where the flaw was. Bob marked the seconds by not putting the umlaut (two dots) over the o in the word Schon. Unfortunately this was not widely known at the time, and some people were buying seconds at a discount and selling for full price, then someone would see the flaw in the cue and call the factory to demand a refund etc., so the practice was relatively short lived. Eventually I believe they switched the stamp on the cues and removed the umlaut altogether, so I don't think you can use the same criteria today to distinguish cues.
Sorry for the novel, this being my first post it was a little long. Look forward to keeping up with billiard news again as I get back in stroke!
Scott
