Fake on Ebay?...

JB Cases said:

Does $300 for a Rambow in 1967 seem like a lot? For some reason I thought Bushkas were like $150ish in the 70s.

Click to expand...

Boy does it ever.

That is what jumped out at me.

From the cue price archives:

1967...

a Hoppe retail was $25

A Rambow with 2 shafts, ivory ferrules, and an Irish Linen wrap
shipped anywhere in USA was... $54.75.

A Katz double butterfly with 2 veneers - fullspliced, was $22.50.

etc...

'wholesale' bulk ivory was $12 per pound

Dale

pdcue said:

Boy does it ever.

That is what jumped out at me.

From the cue price archives:

1967...

a Hoppe retail was $25

A Rambow with 2 shafts, ivory ferrules, and an Irish Linen wrap
shipped anywhere in USA was... $54.75.

A Katz double butterfly with 2 veneers - fullspliced, was $15.

etc...

'wholesale' bulk ivory was $12 per pound

Dale

Click to expand...

Wow.


Where is this archive?

I didn't realize Katz was still making cues in 1967. Can you tell me when they quit?



.

Chopdoc said:

Wow.


Where is this archive?

I didn't realize Katz was still making cues in 1967. Can you tell me when they quit?



.

Click to expand...

Sorry Doc, the "archive" is in my head.
And I mis-spoke on the Katz.

In 1961 - the day before 'The Hustler' was releasded,you could buy the
Katz butterfly cue from the showroom at National Billiards for $15. Their
in-house version of a Masterstroke was $7.50. By 3 months later, the
new prices were $22 and $15.

I am not sure they were still offering the Katz by 1967.
But, you could pick up a box of 50 Champion Tips for $5.00

Dale

Some more photos.. I tried my best, but I have an old Canon camera...







To answer some of the discussions from early this morning:

Sorry for the long description, but I do tend to go overboard. I have purchased a lot of old radio equipment on Ebay, and I write my descriptions like I would want to see if I was interested in buying it. Although I am kind of a "Noob" at high-end cues, I did some reasearch for a couple of days on what different parts of cues are called, etc.

The cue mesures 59" from the top of the tip to the bottom of the butt. (I used a tape measure)

Now the owner says he paid a little over $200 for it in 1967. (or maybe my memory is going..)

David Brown played in his 20's and 30's. Just playing for fun and (maybe) some extra cash. (maybe that is why the case got damaged?)

He says he played at a lot of places, but mostly at: Chris's on N. Milwakee Ave; Golden Cue on Montrose; Oscars in Lombard; and a place in Chinatown that he can't remember the name.

He says the reason he purchased the Cue is he handled someones once. He owned a Viking and a Cuetec?, but he liked the feel of the Rambow over them.

About the finish around the script on the forearm... I asked him if he ever had it refinished, or if he ever waxed over the script to protect it, and he says no.

I tried to find that Craigslist add that was mentioned, with no luck. I found one from the Detroit Metro area, but it did not look at all like this one.

There was though, one from Glaskow Craigslist dated 2012-11-28 that looks a lot like this one, but there was only one photo I could pull up, and it does not show any detail of the script. See below...



The photos I took for my Ebay listing are dated on the 20th of this month, so I am confused...

Let me know if a link to that Craigslist ad has been found.

Thanks.. Ron

Personally I think it's a Rambow. There were several people besides Rambow who wrote the script. The fonts are close enough to his typical styles. In fact, from what I've been told, to me this looks like his own handwriting, which is not as fancy or as bold as his various assistants.

Considering that it may be a fake, if it were it is well executed, aged about 50 years, visually uses the correct parts, has 50 years worth of swelling in the joint area, etc etc. It all look original to me.

I have not seen a Rambow with white and black plastic rings - that's unusual, but it's consistent with the design. At first I didn't like the way the buttcap was finished off at the bottom - that caused some concern, but then realized somebody had just glued a bumper to it leaving a glue line.

Somebody should send the cue to Deno Andrews to authenticate. Doing so after it's purchased could end up resulting in additional value, or a really big disappointment. To the seller - I strongly recommend offering the purchaser a written history of the cue (notarized) and a copy of some official identification from Dave F Brown .

CoachDitka2001 said:

Edit: While this caligraphy is attributed to Rambow, it could very well have been Charlie Kimmel who did the writing on many of his cues:

The more I think about this, I wonder if it was signed "A Rambow Cue" after he died, or was not in good enough shape to do it himself. Signing it "A Rambow Cue" would not make it a forged signature if it was indeed a Rambow cue. David wanted his initials and name on the cue, and if Rambow was dead, someone would have probably put them on there to complete the sale.

Click to expand...

You've given good information throughout this thread, congratulations. You are correct, Charlie Kimmel was one of his his caligraphers.

I also have collected Rambow inscriptions over the years and the lettering on the shaft is consistent with much of it. There are a couple of small variations but not enough to say "fake"!

This is the only cue I've seen signed like this "A Rambow Cue" . Another possibility is he worded it this way because he was to ill to make the cue entirely himself.

Thanks for the insight, Tate...

In doing reasearch on the "Web", I saw one other that said "A Rambow Cue". That one had it all on one plane, not with the "A" above, like this one. I tried to find were I saw it, but I have not found it yet. When I do, I will post it up here.

I had received a question through Ebay, if there was a sales recipt available. There is not... Long gone... But speaking with David Brown, he is willing to write a letter about it's history, etc.

This is fun, digging up all this information and history.

Thanks guys.

Ron

Well, I could not find that pic I saw of "A Rambow Cue" signature.

Thanks again for all the information, guys.

Ron

Well.. I talked quite a bit today with the owner of the cue about how he aquired it.

As he said before, the guy he got it through looked around 60 or 70 years old, and maybe six foot tall with grey hair. He said today that he was "An Old German". The guys car was a grey, large, foreign family car. I thought maybe it could have been someone from Keefe & Hamer, and someone here on the forum may know who that could have been.

I was also wondering if the forum would want me to post, or put into an album, the original higher rez pics of the cue I took for Ebay, and maybe some extra ones, for the forums future use?

Ron

Album Photos

I put a bunch of photos into an album for anyones future use...