Or would you have been ok with paying 1500 for a 500 $ cue coz sellers a good guy?
There is no such thing as a $1500 cue, unless it is made of something exotic or rare.
Let's talk actual materials and say we buy the best quality available at wholesale prices for buying in quantity..
How much does it cost for the wood in a cue?
How much does it cost for a pin?
A bumper?
The materials for joint collars and butt cap?
The tip?
The ferrule?
I'd say the MAJORITY of SIMPLE cues are made with less than $150 in ACTUAL materials, so what makes up the difference in pricing between makers?
I'm talking simple cues now, not cues with exotic inlays, fancy carvings, etching, etc.
It is the NAME of the maker. The longer they have been making them and the more popular they become, the BIGGER their NAME gets.
For SIMPLE cues, do they make a BETTER cue at their 10 year point or their 40 year point? For example, would my 30 year old XXX cue play as well as my 5 year old cue, made by the same maker?
As long as all the materials are THE SAME quality and the construction is quality, the only difference in the price is the NAME of the maker.
I have a Murray Tucker Sneaky Pete that was one of the first five cues he ever made. It was converted from a blank that he didn't make. I have talked to Murray and can produce the emails where he told me that he still uses the same tapers and that my OLD cue would play the SAME as his newer ones.
So, that would tell me that a guy who makes QUALITY cues earlier in his career and then makes the SAME cue 20 years later justifies the significant price increase because of the enhanced NAME recognition. The wood quality, build time, and the construction would be the same. Actually, the build time would probably be faster later on because the maker would gravitate to a more "computerized" method of running their machines.
I had Richard Black make me two cues right after he first started. It would now cost me 10 times more for him to make me the same cues, but he doesn't touch cues in that price range now. He has a guy he trained make them, yet they still are sold as "Richard Black". Are they better or worse than the cues that RICHARD, himself, made for me back then?
I buy cues that play good and use them for playing. I don't "deal" in cues and buy them as an investment. Spending a few bucks for a good playing cue shouldn't bother anybody. If you are worried about "reselling" your cues (unless you are a dealer), then maybe you don't have enough money in the bank to be buying cues all the time. Maybe you should have a better investment counselor. I've thrown more money on the roll of a dice than what these cues sell for. So, what's the problem?
Dean offered anyone their money back if they didn't like their cue. If I buy a cue from any other person here on the sale forum, are you going to offer the same deal? If not, why not?
I bought a brand new car several years ago and drove it for a month and didn't like the way something was, so I took it back. They checked it out and said everything was the way it was supposed to be and that it passed all the "tests". I said, "your sign here says 30 days return, no questions asked." I drove off in another brand new car and they resold my original one as "used" because I had already put miles on it and licensed it in my name.
A few years later, I bought another brand new car at the same place. When they asked me which one I wanted to try out, I pointed to a Gold one sitting up front. The dealer said, "Hold on, I'll go get the keys and let you try it". I said, "I don't need to try it. If I don't like it, I'll bring it back. Let's go sign the paperwork." I drove off in that car and am still driving it and it has over 150,000 miles on it.
So, if anybody didn't like their cue they should have sent it back to Dean and got their money back.
