Cool Stuff From Old National Billiard News

StraightPoolIU

StraightPoolIU

Brent
Silver Member
A buddy of mine was cleaning out some stuff from his house and stumbled upon a stack of old National Billiard News papers from the 70s. I read through them and thought they were extremely cool. I was born in 83 and didn't start playing pool until about 95 so all of the stuff in these articles is either stuff I've only heard about or players I only saw when they were old. So much of pool is and oral only history so it's cool to see a written record of old tournaments. Also, it's interesting that a lot of the articles cover topics we still discuss today.

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ShootingArts

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
Cool Reading

I have to rag you a little about getting one out of three images right side up but I think you should have posted four images just to see if the odds held!

It is fun and interesting to read old magazines and newspapers. Some names are still remembered, some have disappeared. Unfortunately, you will see that not much has changed for mens pro pool in the US. The early seventies were when I flirted with the idea of going pro and had to admit that there was no real pro scene out there. The local $1000 added events had faded to $250 added and got the same players, there wasn't anywhere else for them to be! Somehow playing Buddy Hall and company for two-fifty added didn't have much appeal.

I have scored batches of old magazines a handful of times over the years. Always excellent value for the money.

Hu



StraightPoolIU said:
A buddy of mine was cleaning out some stuff from his house and stumbled upon a stack of old National Billiard News papers from the 70s. I read through them and thought they were extremely cool. I was born in 83 and didn't start playing pool until about 95 so all of the stuff in these articles is either stuff I've only heard about or players I only saw when they were old. So much of pool is and oral only history so it's cool to see a written record of old tournaments. Also, it's interesting that a lot of the articles cover topics we still discuss today re the state of pool etc.
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TATE

TATE

AzB Gold Mensch
Silver Member
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StraightPoolIU

StraightPoolIU

Brent
Silver Member
No idea why those images posted that way. They all previewed correctly, but then tapatalk posted them upside down and sideways.
 
G

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Used to read this cover-to-cover every issue. Back then there was nothing in the media about pool, less than now with no internet etc.
 
jay helfert

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
The National Billiard News was our Bible for info back then. Started by Earl Newby in the 60's and taken over by Conrad Burkman in the 70's. I regret throwing out most of my old copies. I actually wrote an intermitent column (Diary of a Pool Player) for a while in the early 70's.
 
ShootingArts

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
famous

StraightPoolIU said:
No idea why those images posted that way. They all previewed correctly, but then tapatalk posted them upside down and sideways.
Click to expand...

Tapatalk is pretty famous for turning photo's every whichaway. Anybody that wants to read the articles can find a way. Purely a bit of razzing on my part!

I have never turned a photo wrong, well not since the last time anyway!

Hu
 
TATE

TATE

AzB Gold Mensch
Silver Member
StraightPoolIU said:
No idea why those images posted that way. They all previewed correctly, but then tapatalk posted them upside down and sideways.
Click to expand...

Ha ha we're just having fun. My phone flips pics from everything. Sometimes I have to load them sideways to read correctly. National Billiard News was also before my time and I'm ancient.
 
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StraightPoolIU

StraightPoolIU

Brent
Silver Member
Yeah I know you guys are just messing around, but I wanted people to be able to see and read them so I'll try again when I'm on a laptop.

I didn't know about the archive for gold members. Pretty cool. One thing you can clearly see is how dominant 14.1 was as the game of choice until the 80s. The other thing I found amusing was small offhand mentions of players who would be famous later on. In one issue it has the ACUI nationals results with Nick Varner as the winner, but nothing else aboit it. Also a column referenced someone the author had never heard of named Fred Bentivenga finishing high in the 1 hole at Johnson City.

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Larry363

Larry363

New member
jay helfert said:
The National Billiard News was our Bible for info back then. Started by Earl Newby in the 60's and taken over by Conrad Burkman in the 70's. I regret throwing out most of my old copies. I actually wrote an intermitent column (Diary of a Pool Player) for a while in the early 70's.
Click to expand...
Here is the real story of the NBN.

It was purchased from Earl Newby's estate in November of 1972 by me, Ray and Henry Abrams, and Bob and Rick Mullen.

Conrad didn't join the staff until later and didn't become a partner until after that. I sold my share in September of 1979 and moved on to pursue another career. Over time Conrad bought out the other partners.

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