Did the cue market fall apart?

SBC said:
Cue market has to fall...
Overpriced...
The pool of players who is interested will shrink rapidly as they go to the great pool hall in the sky....
There's so many high end cues and vintage cues...eventually the market will be flooded as the pool widows and kids sell them off.
Young players want carbon fiber and plastic cues....very few look to customs
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Something we finally very much agree with. The pool cue collector market is very much older dudes from The Hustler, and The Color of Money heydays, and younger players are more interested in performance over aesthetics/collectability, and as such, we could expect the market to fall slowly but surely over the next decade.

NOW, I will qualify that statement with "in America". I would think there is a big market in Asia right now for collector cues, as there always has been in recent decades, and there is simply a much bigger pool of active players, and players who are only in their late 30s / early 40s, and have done well in business, job careers, or whatnot, and have the money to be rocking a prime piece of wood. Not so much in America.

People with high end cue collections need to be looking at setting up overseas sales, to get the most profit.
 
Maybe this has been mentioned earlier, but I wonder how much the advent of the carbon fiber shaft has to do with all this.
 
L.S. Dennis said:
Maybe this has been mentioned earlier, but I wonder how much the advent of the carbon fiber shaft has to do with all this.
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Low deflection wood shafts precipitated the decline, CF is the death blow.

There will always be a market for fancy and cool cues. The prices will just be lower. And that ain’t a bad thing!
 
I would add that the advent of carbon fiber has had a bigger effect on custom cues than some are willing to admit.

There is a market for the very elite cue makers but I honestly believe it may have peaked. In part due to the economy but more so because of carbon fiber cues.

Go to any league or pool tournament and the majority of players are using carbon fiber shafts. The younger folks already know they can screw one onto any butt and have a high performance cue. They realize there is no need for ivory or fancy inlays to play pool.

They are the future of pool and like hickory shafts in golf; pool has now embraced carbon fiber. There is no going back and in time the custom cues will become less desirable and I think that time is now.

Our high end cues of the past will be collected and hidden away by wealthy folks to display in their homes for their friends to admire. But you will not see them being played with out in the public.

That will make them less desirable and therefore less valuable. JMO!
 
Flood the market with low quality cues and cheap pool products. I was hooked on the silly plastic pool toys growing up.

My first step in a pool room was magical.

Then I went to Blatt Billiards and was amazed.

NYC was a landmark location for the billiards industry.

Today its Qatar maybe Doha or Hanoi, definitely not USA.

Who has the best show room? Is there a Billiards Expo Middle East happening?
 
I know one thing. There is a lot more scams going on my god I’ve been trying to buy bk rush Jb and have had 4 different guys try to scam me
 
Busboy said:
I know one thing. There is a lot more scams going on my god I’ve been trying to buy bk rush Jb and have had 4 different guys try to scam me
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Buy my Jacoby jump/break. I am getting torched betting the NFL this year. Selling it cheap!! 🤣
 
iusedtoberich said:
I don't see many custom sales anymore. It all seems to be Predator Revo shafts and accompanying Predator butts.
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I agree. The younger players have come up in the low deflection shaft and carbon fiber period and that dominated by production cue companies. I dont think they have any interest in waiting 5 years to get a cue when they can choose from some really nice work and get it the same day.
 
Everything in life right now is twice as much And doesn't look like it’s stoping anytime soon. I can afford it but it still makes me sick seeing my utilities twice as much as a year ago. Cues are just one of those things that aren’t a priority in an economy this bad.
 
Customs have really gone down hill. the number of players using them,Is no were near what it was. The massive increse of carbon fiber, and the production companies. Who have all the players. Its really sad.back in the mid 2000s customs were at there peak. Now its all about CF. Im surprised, more custom cuemakers aren't now building more shafts from CF, given thats the trend at the moment.
That might give the market a boost in the future. And get the players interested again.
 
I've always found that in tougher times it's easier to buy then sell. Inflation, credit card debit, Interest rates are all up, a few major chains are closing stores or going bankrupt. I'd say times are tough and it's time to start buying.
 
ibuycues said:
I have either been party to or personally watched a trainload of custom cues get sold this year.
Many, many cues by well known cuemakers. The ICCS was active this year (September 7-9) with cues selling for up to $77k. Lots of custom orders were contracted for as well at the show. People were in attendance from about half of the USA states and also Germany, Japan (several), Alaska, and more. Coming to buy or sell custom cues.

I get it that your market may have changed since early this year. It probably has.
That’s when you do things a little differently.
Stay at it.

Will Prout
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Will, are you getting any younger folks at the ICCS, or is it mostly an older crowd?
 
I have a few customs that I don't play with anymore. I now play with a full carbon cue I built. Butt and shaft. It is stupid easy. If you have a lathe and can read a caliper you can build it. It plays good, as good as my customs, honestly. A few good players have used it and all say the same thing. Carbon is the future of pool. It plays good and will only get better as more R&D is put into the product. It is consistent, doesn't ding or warp easily. You just get the same hit every time you use it.
I love custom cues and will continue to collect them when I can afford to. There is a rare beauty to a good custom that just appeals to my eye. But, we are not going to be playing with wood in the future. Just look at al the sports that are much more dynamic that have ditched wood over the years. The younger generations have grown up playing other sports with new materials, they don't have the wood bias ingrained in them. They only know the engineered materials. They will not be going backwards to wood.
 
CaptainBly said:
I have a few customs that I don't play with anymore. I now play with a full carbon cue I built. Butt and shaft. It is stupid easy. If you have a lathe and can read a caliper you can build it. It plays good, as good as my customs, honestly. A few good players have used it and all say the same thing. Carbon is the future of pool. It plays good and will only get better as more R&D is put into the product. It is consistent, doesn't ding or warp easily. You just get the same hit every time you use it.
I love custom cues and will continue to collect them when I can afford to. There is a rare beauty to a good custom that just appeals to my eye. But, we are not going to be playing with wood in the future. Just look at al the sports that are much more dynamic that have ditched wood over the years. The younger generations have grown up playing other sports with new materials, they don't have the wood bias ingrained in them. They only know the engineered materials. They will not be going backwards to wood.
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I have to agree with how easy it is to take a CF blank and turn it into a great playing cue! Have finished two and getting ready to start on a third. Still can’t believe I spent over $1200 on 3 CF shafts!
 
I've said it repeatedly: Pool players buy pool cues. As the number of players decreases, demand for cues decreases. And what happens when demand decreases?

Just look at what has happened to pool halls. If not for leagues, pool would be dead as a hammer in the US,

Plus inflation is breaking everyone's backs -- can't imagine trying to support a family these days.
 
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I think that the $1,000 to $4,000 custom wood cue market is noticeably down here in the US in demand and hence selling prices.
I don’t see it coming back here much due to lack of demand and continual over supply as gents like me age and are looking to lighten their cache of collected cues.
Every cue that I own I could afford at the time of purchase and I bought them to enjoy the designs, construction, and playability - if you don’t care about cue profits you will not really lose in this game - that is what true collection hobby passion is really all about.

Speculators always must accept risk in various forms - we are never a stagnant economy.
 
mikemosconi said:
I think that the $1,000 to $4,000 custom wood cue market is noticeably down here in the US in demand and hence selling prices.
I don’t see it coming back here much due to lack of demand and continual over supply as gents like me age and are looking to lighten their cache of collected cues.
Every cue that I own I could afford at the time of purchase and I bought them to enjoy the designs, construction, and playability - if you don’t care about cue profits you will not really lose in this game - that is what true collection hobby passion is really all about.

Speculators always must accept risk in various forms - we are never a stagnant economy.
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THIS!! times a thousand.

Now is a great time to be buying cues from makers and time periods you personally love, admire, or whatever. Buy them because they are art, buy them because you appreciate every little thing that went into the construction of that cue.

But if you're buying because you think you're going to get rich and retire on your cue collection then you are going to be in a lot of trouble.
 
OldOrvis said:
It seems that earlier in the year I had 0 problems selling cues, but now it seems like its pulling teeth to get any kind of deals done. I know something has changed due to me getting a cue back I sold earlier this year in less than a day and had 8 PMs and legit offers about it and now I posted it again and haven't even got a "hello how are ya" lol Are others having the same experience? I have several cues I posted across different platforms and I don't try to Highball with my prices and even at low prices things don't seem to be moving.

Thanks :)
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Inflation. Aging collector demographic. New tech.

Young folks don't really want collector cues. They want a CF shaft. You can get an SVB edition for $600-700 and it should do anything you will ever need done with a cue. You can get a top of the line production cue that will rival or plain spank any cue of the past. You can get a JFlowers cue that is better than most customs out there for $300-400.

Many collector cues aren't LD, younger people under 40 want LD.

If you weren't alive during TCOM era or accustats VHS era those old known brands don't mean a thing. Oh a Balabushka for $3K? What's the point, it's not that intricate and it's not even LD. There's no romance in the old brands like there used to be.

I'd like to have a cog but that's because I've felt how nice they play, but if I were in the market for a primary cue I'd just buy something new. Who wants to deal with cue salesmen/collectors and that BS? I can order a cue and have it on my doorstep in less than a week. Most people think their things are worth their weight in gold. I say let them keep them, I'm not paying top dollar for some old cue just because somebody thinks it's great.

If your stuff isn't selling, you either don't have it in front of enough eyes or more than likely you want too damn much for an old piece of wood with outdated tech. I won't pay retail or close for an old cue, enjoy it collecting dust.

You are competing with mass production in a shrinking market/demographic.
 
Pool cues are a great way to commit to training for a tournament.

Collector cues always come with at least 5 stories for how it was made, how it got there and who else had it.

Most of today's generation have never met a trained cue sales staff member.

They order whats the most popular from the retailer and its shipped online.

In another industry that means stepping up to educate the audience about why collecting is important.

Collector cues are industry artifacts. American craftsmanship.
 
People here keep repeating that "younger folks" aren't into custom cues. I'm 32 and I collect custom cues.. I don't buy production cues. I also have several friends in my age group who collect custom cues.

That being said, I'm not buying cues from the US right now because the exchange rate is crazy right now. A $10,000 cue now costs 1.5 million yen, the yen and dollar were on par just 2 years ago and now a cue of this value costs a whopping 5000 dollar more than before.
 
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