With the large amount of high-end cues that landed in Japan during the economic bubble and the divorce rate being as high as it is, not to mention the relatively low awareness of billiards in the country, I wouldn't be surprised if some "known" cues have become lost once again.
Balabushkas - How Many are left
- Thread starter Type79
- Start date
With the large amount of high-end cues that landed in Japan during the economic bubble and the divorce rate being as high as it is, not to mention the relatively low awareness of billiards in the country, I wouldn't be surprised if some "known" cues have become lost once again.
I have a theory that if a counterfeiter can make a clone of the real thing so perfectly that the maker can't tell if he made it then for all practical purposes the item is real. Chew on that for a while.
I agree and have said the same thing.
I somewhat disagree. The skills to counterfeit a Bushka wouldn't be that hard to acquire. That might be heresy to some but the fact of it is that most competent people can learn to use the tools George did. Whether they can be counted on to follow the exact steps to build it exactly as George did is another story. But let's assume that they have the skill and can make a perfect counterfeit.
It is highly unlikely that they will be able to get $10,000 for a relatively plain cue. I admit that I don't know the current prices of Szambotis, Black Boars, Searings, and Herceks but there are four of the top makers in the US at the moment and I would be surprised to see them selling a plain cue such as most Bushkas are for the price a plain Bushka gets.
referring to cues like this
Having grown up on True Crime mags that my mom had in the house I often think about how someone would get away with stuff. My thought would be that the only way to do it and have the slightest chance of not being found out would be to make the cues in secret - be an unknown cue maker - completely off the radar - and then filter them into the market through a "found in granddad's closet" type scheme through Ebay.
But even that is going to be tough because most people will want the cue authenticated and they will have to be SUPER GOOD to be able to pass Pete Tascarella's inspection IMO. Any that have already passed, well congratulations, you own a Balabuska even if George didn't build it.
I do also agree about risk/reward. Personally I don't think that the risk fits the reward because not only do they risk prosecution or worse but they also can't do it alone. So they have to split the proceeds with accomplices who may end up betraying them down the line.
Trust is ultimately where all schemes break down. The minute you bring in someone else you have introduced a weak link. But counterfeits Bushkas do exist and some of them are probably not "fake" any more having been accepted as real.
In my business I see a lot of counterfeit stuff on the market. I have a theory that if a counterfeiter can make a clone of the real thing so perfectly that the maker can't tell if he made it then for all practical purposes the item is real. Chew on that for a while.
Your last line had always been the case. Many times art pieces have hung in museums for many years only to have tome expert come along and dispute it. Up until that time even if it were a fake it has been accepted as real until someone proves otherwise.
Did you ever see the movie "F for Fake"? It is about this guy who plays himself in the movie. It is sort of a documentary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory
Thank you. Makes my point exactly.
"Following his death, Elmyr de Hory paintings became valuable collectibles. His paintings had become so popular that forged Elmyr's began to appear on the market."
I for Irony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fclaJK5KDU
Yes, but of that group of shaft dowels - 90% got sold to palmer for 50 cents each.
Maybe 20 - 30 wound up as a new shaft for a new cue.
Dale
So I opened the Billiard Encyclopedia to read about George again to try and figure out how many cues he might have made. It appears that he made cues from 1959 to 1975 and the figures quoted were 'about 20-30' cues a year in the early 60s and 75 cues a year by 1975. He was ordering shafts a thousand at a time but he was filling orders for shafts that people ordered whether they needed them or not. So there are probably a lot more Balabushka shafts than butts out there, much more than two per cue we see these days. George also apparently did a lot of repair work.
Starting in 1971 he bought six blanks a month from Szamboti and previously had purchased a couple dozen Titlists ever couple months. No figures on how many blanks from Burton Spain.
He used Titlist, Szamboti and Spain blanks and had a supplier doing his shaft turning to just above finished size. So his business was more than he could handle on his one lathe so he outsourced some of the work to others, blanks and shafts.
So if we took an average of the two numbers we could say that George made about 50 cues a year on average from 1959 to 1975. I didn't count cues made before 1959 as these appear to be more on the hobby side before he went commercial.
So 16 years at an average of 50 cues a year tops him out at 800 cues. You could do it in a period fashion if you like:
1959-1965 30 a year - 180 cues
1966-1970 50 a year - 200 cues
1971-1975 75 a year - 300 cues
Total 680.
It appears that IF we go on the information provided in the Billiard Encyclopedia that George likely didn't make more than 1000 cues in his career with the most generous calculation. I would tend to think that cue makers today could pretty much calculate how many cues are possible with the one lathe, one bandsaw, oil finish setup that George had. Add to that the fact that George would stop working when visitors showed up and would give them all the time they wanted.
I would be conservative and say that there are no more than 800 genuine Balabushkas on the planet and if someone doesn't have provenance then it should be a very hard sell if one wants to get market price.
It is too bad that a man who so meticulous about how he built cues didn't have an equally meticulous set of records detailing every cue he made. Artists and great craftsmen don't always make good bookkeepers. I would tend to bet though that someone, probably Pete Tascarella, has access to the receipt copies that do exist.
Starting in 1971 he bought six blanks a month from Szamboti and previously had purchased a couple dozen Titlists ever couple months. No figures on how many blanks from Burton Spain.
He used Titlist, Szamboti and Spain blanks and had a supplier doing his shaft turning to just above finished size. So his business was more than he could handle on his one lathe so he outsourced some of the work to others, blanks and shafts.
So if we took an average of the two numbers we could say that George made about 50 cues a year on average from 1959 to 1975. I didn't count cues made before 1959 as these appear to be more on the hobby side before he went commercial.
So 16 years at an average of 50 cues a year tops him out at 800 cues. You could do it in a period fashion if you like:
1959-1965 30 a year - 180 cues
1966-1970 50 a year - 200 cues
1971-1975 75 a year - 300 cues
Total 680.
It appears that IF we go on the information provided in the Billiard Encyclopedia that George likely didn't make more than 1000 cues in his career with the most generous calculation. I would tend to think that cue makers today could pretty much calculate how many cues are possible with the one lathe, one bandsaw, oil finish setup that George had. Add to that the fact that George would stop working when visitors showed up and would give them all the time they wanted.
I would be conservative and say that there are no more than 800 genuine Balabushkas on the planet and if someone doesn't have provenance then it should be a very hard sell if one wants to get market price.
It is too bad that a man who so meticulous about how he built cues didn't have an equally meticulous set of records detailing every cue he made. Artists and great craftsmen don't always make good bookkeepers. I would tend to bet though that someone, probably Pete Tascarella, has access to the receipt copies that do exist.
So out of the documentary comes the question of what exactly is a forgery?
If a painter creates an orginal painting in the style of Matisse but does not sign it....does not sell it as a Matisse did he forge a Matisse if someone later signs and sells it as a Matisse?
Similarly, if a cue maker makes a cue that is dead nuts perfect in the style of Balabushka but does not sell it as such and then someone else resells it as a Bushka did the cue maker commit a forgery?
I think it comes down to a sensible knowledge of what could happen. When a maker makes an item that can be mistaken for someone else's work and he knows that there is a likelihood of this happening then he is complicit in my opinion even if legally not held liable.
When a signature or some sort of identification can prevent the similar work from being misrepresented and it's not used then the maker is a party to whatever happens with the work after it leaves his possession. If he knows that the simple addition of a signature could transform the work of an unknown into a Matisse or the lack of a signature transform an unknown cue into a Balabushka then the maker makes that possible.
Which again begs the question, what is a forgery. If I take a cue to a collector's show and everyone agrees that it looks like and hits like a Balabushka, is it not then materially a Balabushka?
Could we say that then - just for the sake of philosophy - that the only true Balabushkas that exist are those that George personally delivered or personally mailed to his customers.
Those people are the only ones on Earth who had the pleasure of receiving the work they commissioned directly from the artist's hands. Everyone else is dabbling in hope that they got the real thing.
Fascinating discussion - thanks Macguy for the heads up on the movie.
If a painter creates an orginal painting in the style of Matisse but does not sign it....does not sell it as a Matisse did he forge a Matisse if someone later signs and sells it as a Matisse?
Similarly, if a cue maker makes a cue that is dead nuts perfect in the style of Balabushka but does not sell it as such and then someone else resells it as a Bushka did the cue maker commit a forgery?
I think it comes down to a sensible knowledge of what could happen. When a maker makes an item that can be mistaken for someone else's work and he knows that there is a likelihood of this happening then he is complicit in my opinion even if legally not held liable.
When a signature or some sort of identification can prevent the similar work from being misrepresented and it's not used then the maker is a party to whatever happens with the work after it leaves his possession. If he knows that the simple addition of a signature could transform the work of an unknown into a Matisse or the lack of a signature transform an unknown cue into a Balabushka then the maker makes that possible.
Which again begs the question, what is a forgery. If I take a cue to a collector's show and everyone agrees that it looks like and hits like a Balabushka, is it not then materially a Balabushka?
Could we say that then - just for the sake of philosophy - that the only true Balabushkas that exist are those that George personally delivered or personally mailed to his customers.
Those people are the only ones on Earth who had the pleasure of receiving the work they commissioned directly from the artist's hands. Everyone else is dabbling in hope that they got the real thing.
Fascinating discussion - thanks Macguy for the heads up on the movie.
Mychoads
Registered
Closet Balabushkas
My father has an "off the grid" bushka that he has owned since the late 70's early 80's. He told me he bought it off a cab driver in a pool hall in Brooklyn for $90 which was a lot of money for him back then. It's a relatively plain-Jane model and came with 2 shafts. He thought he lost it in a pool hall in Staten Island years ago, and it turns out he lent it to my uncle who had it in his basement for years. I talked him into sending it to Pete Tascarella for authentication when he got it back after seeing what they were selling for on ebay.
Tascarella called him right after opening the box and told him it was genuine, and unique in the number of points. It turned out one of the shafts wasn't original. My dad asked Tascarella to perform a complete refurb on the stick and make another shaft for it along with the letter of authenticity. He got it back and we took it out to the pool hall and shot a couple games with it. Very solid hit and felt great in your hands. After that he put it back in the closet and said I can have it to sell/play with/do whatever I want when he's dead. I doubt it'll leave that closet for another few years, if at all.
I would imagine there are a few stories similar to this. Without my prompting he would have never got it authenticated and it would still be an unknown "the guy said it was a balabushka" stick in the closet.
My father has an "off the grid" bushka that he has owned since the late 70's early 80's. He told me he bought it off a cab driver in a pool hall in Brooklyn for $90 which was a lot of money for him back then. It's a relatively plain-Jane model and came with 2 shafts. He thought he lost it in a pool hall in Staten Island years ago, and it turns out he lent it to my uncle who had it in his basement for years. I talked him into sending it to Pete Tascarella for authentication when he got it back after seeing what they were selling for on ebay.
Tascarella called him right after opening the box and told him it was genuine, and unique in the number of points. It turned out one of the shafts wasn't original. My dad asked Tascarella to perform a complete refurb on the stick and make another shaft for it along with the letter of authenticity. He got it back and we took it out to the pool hall and shot a couple games with it. Very solid hit and felt great in your hands. After that he put it back in the closet and said I can have it to sell/play with/do whatever I want when he's dead. I doubt it'll leave that closet for another few years, if at all.
I would imagine there are a few stories similar to this. Without my prompting he would have never got it authenticated and it would still be an unknown "the guy said it was a balabushka" stick in the closet.
Back in the 80s Richard Black made some (2 that i saw) unsigned cues in the style of BalabushkaSo out of the documentary comes the question of what exactly is a forgery?
If a painter creates an orginal painting in the style of Matisse but does not sign it....does not sell it as a Matisse did he forge a Matisse if someone later signs and sells it as a Matisse?
Similarly, if a cue maker makes a cue that is dead nuts perfect in the style of Balabushka but does not sell it as such and then someone else resells it as a Bushka did the cue maker commit a forgery?
I think it comes down to a sensible knowledge of what could happen. When a maker makes an item that can be mistaken for someone else's work and he knows that there is a likelihood of this happening then he is complicit in my opinion even if legally not held liable.
When a signature or some sort of identification can prevent the similar work from being misrepresented and it's not used then the maker is a party to whatever happens with the work after it leaves his possession. If he knows that the simple addition of a signature could transform the work of an unknown into a Matisse or the lack of a signature transform an unknown cue into a Balabushka then the maker makes that possible.
Which again begs the question, what is a forgery. If I take a cue to a collector's show and everyone agrees that it looks like and hits like a Balabushka, is it not then materially a Balabushka?
Could we say that then - just for the sake of philosophy - that the only true Balabushkas that exist are those that George personally delivered or personally mailed to his customers.
Those people are the only ones on Earth who had the pleasure of receiving the work they commissioned directly from the artist's hands. Everyone else is dabbling in hope that they got the real thing.
Fascinating discussion - thanks Macguy for the heads up on the movie.
that really looked good and the guy that had Richard to make them had to pull some fast talking
to convince him to do it.I do remember those cues looked so close to the real thing that it was very
easy to pass off as the real deal i am sure that he did not make those cues with the intent of cheating
anybody but after that who knows what they could have been sold for
Last edited:
George was a mans MAN just like Ernie and Gus.
I'm sure he made well over 100 cues a year.
He was buying 12 blanks a month from Burt and similar from Gus.
And that doesn't count titlist......
So it wouldn't surprise me if he made 2500..... he was a real CRAFTSMAN and a WELL OILED MACHINE.
.
I'm sure he made well over 100 cues a year.
He was buying 12 blanks a month from Burt and similar from Gus.
And that doesn't count titlist......
So it wouldn't surprise me if he made 2500..... he was a real CRAFTSMAN and a WELL OILED MACHINE.
.
This can become like a game of telephone because much of what we are saying in second hand. As I said in my other post I know a guy who knew him and was at his shop many times. His story of Balabushka coming into the pool room with a cue wrapped in paper and offering it for sale I have to believe is a true story.
Cues he was custom making may have talken some time to get, I had one on order for more then a year. This does not mean he was not making cues continually of different styles as they came into his head.
Years ago i hung in rooms that were big action rooms and lots of players came and went. I have personally myself seen what has to be hundreds of Balabushkas. I would make a guess there could be a dozen in the room at any one time.
I have owned at least a dozen myself and still have two. I can't believe I have myself in my tiny little corner of the world have owned 2% of all the cues he ever made.
Tascarella would be the guy to ask for what would be the most educated guess. I go back to my comment about Searing when he had dozens of cues ready to spray and sell. You don't really know what someone was doing at any one period of their career. There may have been a time when Balabushka was whipping out those house cue conversions by the barrel full.
The problem with leaving things like that to kids or grandkids is frequently they don't appreciate it. I watch a show called American Pickers and I've seen older people saying they are selling their collections of collectible stuff because their kids and grandkids have no interest in it and they want to get it in the hands of someone who will appreciate it.
And I was a ready to let you hit some balls with mine until I read the last sentence. :smile:
The issue is not really how many he made before he died. Say it was 1000 to 1500 maybe even 2000. The issue now is now many survived.
How many were broken back in the day and tossed out before anyone knew what a Buska really was, how many were just overlooked and thrown away as some cheapo looking stick.
Other than real hardcore players and collectors even knew the significance of a Buska, Without the Color of Money the genral public would not have a clue.
I'd say conservatively you likely lost 20 to 30% maybe more just over the years due to natural causes.
What ever the total # made was I'd say the # left is significantly less
How many were broken back in the day and tossed out before anyone knew what a Buska really was, how many were just overlooked and thrown away as some cheapo looking stick.
Other than real hardcore players and collectors even knew the significance of a Buska, Without the Color of Money the genral public would not have a clue.
I'd say conservatively you likely lost 20 to 30% maybe more just over the years due to natural causes.
What ever the total # made was I'd say the # left is significantly less
how many cues do you make per year? this is a great thread to get some insight into what goes into crafting a cue of Bushka quality.
You're in a similar position as single man shop and your cues are extremely well regarded.
Last edited:
John Showman doesn't fulfill his orders, he has screwed many folks out of money. Showman is many things, but "extremely well regarded" isn't one of them.
He is liar, a cheat and has a strange business practice of quoting a price, and then holding cues "hostage" for a higher price.
JB, you probably wasn't aware of this, and I heard this numerous times, from this forum's highest esteemed members, and it happened to me and one of my best friends. We had to get an attorney involved just to get our deposit back.
Comparing George Balabushka to John Showman is like comparing Gandhi to Jeffery Dahmer.
Ken
I am relatively new to pool. What makes Balabushkas so identifiable and revered?
Thanks for your contribution to this post.
You couldn't be farther OFF your rocker if you tried.
.
IMHO he made somewhere between the reported 1200 and I think 1600. I think he was knocking out titlist conversions pretty easily. The A Jointed cues probably took him a bit longer and they were much more elaborate as he got into the 1970's.
I think 10% were probably destroyed in one way or another. I think quite a few might be undiscovered, I also think quite a few might have been diagnosed as non-Bushkas when they in fact are, conversely some that are, probably aren't.
Fakes, well of course. You had buyers shelling out 5 figures for 200 dollars in materials. Especially over seas where no one could tell a Bushka from an old Palmer. As far as the who's... well lets say there are enough clues out in internetland to be able to put together a composite of the players.
Lets also be smart and say that if you're COLLECTING Balabushkas, you want to keep the numbers low, so you're not going to go out and have fakes made and try to pass them off and increase the availability of said cue. The value is in the rarity.
Also by the mid 80's, certain materials were no longer common place, notched diamonds from luthier supply companies had changed, double black linen was now the norm, original brown bumpers were not easy to locate.To produce a good enough fake, you would have had to have the proper materials in your supply. I believe there are probably less than 100 passable fakes, if really scrutinized you could shelve 75% of them.
JV
I think 10% were probably destroyed in one way or another. I think quite a few might be undiscovered, I also think quite a few might have been diagnosed as non-Bushkas when they in fact are, conversely some that are, probably aren't.
Fakes, well of course. You had buyers shelling out 5 figures for 200 dollars in materials. Especially over seas where no one could tell a Bushka from an old Palmer. As far as the who's... well lets say there are enough clues out in internetland to be able to put together a composite of the players.
Lets also be smart and say that if you're COLLECTING Balabushkas, you want to keep the numbers low, so you're not going to go out and have fakes made and try to pass them off and increase the availability of said cue. The value is in the rarity.
Also by the mid 80's, certain materials were no longer common place, notched diamonds from luthier supply companies had changed, double black linen was now the norm, original brown bumpers were not easy to locate.To produce a good enough fake, you would have had to have the proper materials in your supply. I believe there are probably less than 100 passable fakes, if really scrutinized you could shelve 75% of them.
JV