Balke-Collender Label Dating

Pre-Titlist Balke-Collender Veneered Cues - a Primer

LABELS

I know we have this documented somewhere, but I can't find it. I'll start with the following and await corrections. If there are variations I haven't listed, please provide:

• 1800's: no label (Balke-Collender stamped)
• White/clear interior: early 1900's - ~1911/12
• Red/clear interior: ~1911/12 - ~1921
• Gold/red interior: ~1922-1939

Shown below, l-r

REPRODUCTION LABELS

Here are some real labels, with reproductions next to them.

In each picture, the label on the left is authentic, the one in the middle is a Stellinga sting special, and the one on the right is the one that is currently available. Stellinga's labels were obviously very accurate - the problem was that he sold cues and affixed these to them without telling anyone, and also tended to use the white one (the oldest) on cues that quite possibly were from later time periods. Fortunately he sold all of his cues and abandoned the labels-selling, I assume to cover his tracks. The red Stellinga label was on one of my cues (shape distorted from camera) and fell off after about a week. I don't know if the newer reproduction labels hold up better, but I like the fact that while they are great for restored cues, you can tell they are fakes.

VENEER COLORS

These are the combinations I have come up with, possibly in correct order, although I think that at one time you had a choice of combinations. By the 1930's the Titlist colors were established for the M26 1/2 cues.

The oldest ones sometimes had Violet instead of black for the outer veneer, or possibly what I perceived as black is actually very dark violet. Yellow instead of natural wood seemed to be more prevalent on the oldest cues, but that could be my imagination.

Order is outer point veneer to inner. Order was reversed on the wedge, and the outer color was usually on the bottom for veneered buttplates, although I've seen some combinations that had no correlation.

Here is the list. I will post photo examples later.

• Black[Violet]/natural[Yellow]/Green/natural
• Black/Red/Purple/natural
• Black/Orange/Green/natural
• Black/Green/Purple/natural
• Purple/Green/Maple/natural (Titlist colors)

Thanks Donny - I forgot about the Blue Book. I looked in the 'Billiard Encyclopedia' and had a hard time with some of the dating. It's a fantastic book though.

I also forgot about that last group of labels you listed. I owned quite a few of those 10 or so years ago but apparently lost the scans during the laptop crash of 2006

Here is a website with great images of the Balke-Collender cues: http://vintagecuesforyou.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=124

The Titlist information seems to coincide almost exactly with what's on my website, so I'm guessing he used it as a starting point and then got better images. He's even missing the same exact information that I'm missing, but which exists - I haven't made updates to my site in 6-8 years.