2 New Titlist Conversions by Steve Klein

classiccues

classiccues

Morgan set complete...
Silver Member
The first purpleheart cue is a straight off Hoppe. I did not want to lose any of the purpleheart since it was an excellent blank. So we kept it simple....

The second is another favorite of mine. I kept everything proportional to early Bushka cues, the backend is shorter than the 3" above the delrin that is more common. The pattern, made more famous by the Mosconi cue, even closer than pervious incarnations with the copper bands, and a somewhat rarer pattern in the prongs. The backend material is the material that is correct and what we had offered for sale..

The butt diameters are modern, its not an oversized short cue.

Joe
 

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The copper rings in the bottom cue look great.

After viewing the photos, now I'm thinking of changing the rings on a cue underway to some old Palmer copper acrylic.
My cue-maker still has a small inventory leftover from decades ago. My cue is using silver rings for its Bushka design
but the double copper rings look so handsome, different and distinct that I just may change the rings to copper acrylic.

Thanks for the photos.

Matt B.
 
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Glad you kept the butt rings the copper color. There has been much talk about those rings being gold color on Mosconi's cue, when the actual color is closer to your version.
 
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These two cues are exceptional, and I like mixing it up with a Bushka style and a Hoppe.
Cool stuff, and Steve Klein builds a great playing cue as well
 
WildWing said:
Glad you kept the butt rings the copper color. There has been much talk about those rings being gold color on Mosconi's cue, when the actual color is closer to your version.
Click to expand...

I like the copper.. its kind of funny... in a bigger section its almost orange, but once its thinned.. it really become more copperish...

JV
 
classiccues said:
I like the copper.. its kind of funny... in a bigger section its almost orange, but once its thinned.. it really become more copperish...

JV
Click to expand...

Joe, not only did you get the color right, but it's also a pretty rare one, in original vintage. To my knowledge, there are two cues by George Balabushka with those copper-colored rings in the buttsleeve. One, of course, is Willie Mosconi's cue. The second is one made for the Glenn family, pictured in the original Billiard Encyclopedia, as well as in the famous Snap magazine on classic cues, with the Gus on the cover. The Bushka picture in the Snap is very small, but looks like the same cue as pictured in the Encyclopedia, just new, with shipping box. There may others, but I haven't seen them.

I have two theories on this color. One, it may have been a very special color to George, that he made very few cues with it. Two, he simply may have had very little of that color in plastic, so it's more rare than others. When Jerry Rauenzahn and I labored over the Mosconi Bushka tribute, we selected brass, as it had the closest quality to the copper-like color, which we didn't have in plastic. Of course we avoided all the gold plastic that was out there, as it wasn't the right color.

Great looking cue.
 
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