Tate thinks it could be a Gandy that was built with Adam parts. He has said that that was common place even on the old Palmers. But, the more I think about it, the more I think the cue was a early National cue. When National Chalk started their cue facility they hired Richard Helmstetter to set up the facility, Richard also brought in many cue makers that would become famous later. Such as, Bob Meucci, Paul Huebler and many many others, these early cues were very well built and can be found using many techniques that were later used when these gentleman set up their own shop's. Such as many early National cues will have the Nylon Insert Used in later Huebler cues, while working there Bob Meucci also gave a number of those cues many touches that were seen in his later cues. Richard Helmstetter was already making his own blanks at this time and when he stopped working for them he became a partner in Adam and went to Japan and set up and re-tooled that facility.
I doubt we will ever tie this down completely but this cue certainly shows signs of many later innovations that are still used today, I think you definitely found a keeper.
I am working on the cue as we speak, I will post some additional photo's as progress is made that you can keep of the restoration.
Take care and thanks for the opportunity to work on this for you, I appreciate the confidence in my abilities.
