I have zero skin in this game......and I'd love to own a Searing and sure, in the past, I even questioned what distinguishes his workmanship from any other top name cue-maker.....and I got a lot of scorn and rebuke from my post too. In any event, Dennis is indeed one of the greats.
So Mr. Harris comes along....the same fellow who has offered a free cue raffle at Chritsmas to AZ members for the past 4-5 years......and expresses his own views about the way the cue was built. I do not know enough about cue-making to take sides but I do know that demeaning his skills as a cue-maker is an insult to all of his customers. I look at it this way, if he produces 180 cues a year. That's just 3 batches of 5 cues every month to get started.......7-8-9 months later the first batch of 15 cues is done while every intervening month witnessed a new batch of 15 cues getting started. When you have the backlog of cues to produce, doing this every month becomes routine.
I do not know how many hours annually any cue-maker invests in making pool cues as so many do this as a sideline to their primary career or vocation. I know that Ed Prewitt produces a small annual volume of cues as does Joel Hercek and Dennis Searing. How many hours annually that involves I haven't the foggiest notion. But I also assume that Mr. Harris puts in a lot more hours annually than these other cue-makers which is a big factor in terms of volume.
To the very best of my recollection, I have yet to read any adverse comments from any of Mr. Harris's customers criticizing his customer demeanor, communications or the cue they had made. To my way of thinking, that's a good thing in consideration of the number of cues he's built that he's now critiqued & criticized about. He also seems to want to pay it forward so to speak these past consecutive years with his Christmas pool cue giveaway......I also think he has created some great sleeve designs too.
Anyway, let's all take a deep breath and try to pay attention to more important things....like finding me a mid 18 oz. flat ivory joint Joel Hercek cue that someone will bring to a 2017 cue show in Las Vegas so I can buy the darn thing. I have to do another mandatory IRA withdrawal next year so might as well invest it in another cue but I have to be outside CA in order to do any deal......"Viva Las Vegas!"
Happy Halloween,
Matt B.
