What is a Titleist Conversion? Do cue makers actually use old Titleist's and add to them?
What is a Titleist Conversion? Do cue makers actually use old Titleist's and add to them?
What about the old Brunswick 2 piece cues. Don't they cut the butt smaller and change the joints. Are these considered "conversions" also?
The Brunswick 26 1/2 was the cue that the Titlist was patterned after, the Brunswick 26 1/2 was first made by Brunswick around 1908, and between 1939 - 1940 Brunswick Changed the name to Willie Hoppe Titlist.
Cue makers have been using this cues since the 1920's to convert into two piece playing. The first conversions of the Brunswick 26 1/2 and later the Titlist were made by Herman Rambo who was the production manager for Brunswicks cue department, and a few known examples were made by Harvey Martin. Later during the late 1940's Frank Paradise started using Titlist blanks to make his early cues. Then starting in the early 1960's every cue maker from Balabushka, Ernie G from Gina Cue, Palmer Custom Cues, Richard Helmstetter, Tad, Gus Szamboti and many many others also used Titlist cues in there early days.
I also have used Titlist and Brunswick 26 1/2 cues to build cues for myself and some of my customers, they make great foundations for a cue, they are full spliced blanks that are very stable if stored properly for all these years.
Below are some pictures of some my conversions:
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You are certainly correct, in fact when ever a one peice cue is cut and a joint is added it is a conversion. In fact the most expensive brunswick cues ever made their model 360, was made as a one piece cue by Brunswick and then it was cut and a joint was added.
Here is a thread that shows some photo's of the Model 360 cues!!
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=181579
What is a Titleist Conversion? Do cue makers actually use old Titleist's and add to them?
In addition to the excellent information here, not all cues made from Titlists were "conversions". Some were made from "blanks" supplied by Brunswick.
Brunswick did things in an assemply line process. Blanks are oversized cues and can be seen here on my site at the link below. Brunswick had huge sanding machines to make the blanks into the finished cue - ferrule, tip and all.
Blanks were sold to a few select suppliers by Brunswick. Palmer was a major buyer of Brunswick blanks until Brunswick shut down their cue making operation sometime around 1970.
http://palmercollector.com/Titlist.html
Chris