The Case... A review.
BTW Before I write this I do want to mention BeBop is a very good ebayer. Great communication and timely shipping. And yea I am not affilliated or know him from Adam so please don't think this is an attempt at spam.
Ok so the case arrived yesterday and I wanted to do a nice thorough review of what I thought of it.
First thing I noticed when I opened the box was that undeniably the aroma of leather that hit me. Good sign I thought. When I got it out of the plastic I was impressed by the design. Obviously the rivits are put in by hand (little chinamen hands I suppose) but they are not evenly spaced or in the middle of each ear of leather. I wouldn't count it as a negative just the way it was manufactured (gives it character).
Let me start at the bottom. It has 4 hefty pins in the base that are widely spaced enough to have the case stand upright on its own.
The large lower pocket has 2 zippers on it one in the front for access to the pocket and one on the side that gives access to a jump butt pouch. This pouch is separate from the main pocket by a nylon liner (nice touch).
The smaller pocket up top has a latch and a zipper. The zipper is on the side so that when you open the pocket you don't have to dig down in the pocket without being able to see what you are digging for. It opens the pocket so you have easy access.
The lid has two latches on it and a handle, it is lined with a nice foam pad and has a hard top. The handle is well secured in the lid. On one of of the latches there is a snap hook that lets you put the latch up when opening the case. (I will get to the reason this is really cool in a second).
After opening the latches the lid and stand pivot from the middle of the case and the case is able to lean at around a 30 degree angle. We pushed it a couple of times and it took a pretty good shove to get it to topple over.
Inside is a rubber separator for the cue parts. This was a little disappointing because I would have liked to see felt in there. Not something that I cannot fix on my own but I would have liked to have seen that as part of the case. If you look down inside the holes you will see around 3 inches in the felt liner starts. I would assume that it runs all the way to the bottom of the tube. I could only see around a foot down inside with a light. When you put a shaft or butt in, each tube has a separate spring in the bottom.
Now comes the cool part when you flip the lid and stand back up to close the case you tap the latch ear that you clipped up using the snap hook and the ear comes down over the latch and it latches automagically. And with a press on the other latch it also latches by itself. This is nice to have when you have lost a match and don't want to show your face for very long you can basically slap the lid down and go.
Actually there are built in spring triggers in the latches that make them latch when pressure is applied. This also goes for the latch on the small pouch.
On the back of the case is the shoulder strap. It has a nice shoulder piece for comfort. There is a thing about the shoulder strap I do not like and that is the way the strap is attached to the case at the top. It has the strap leather just attached to case with 3 rivits. This concerns me because when you hold onto the strap all of the weight of the case is on the strap and the lower 2 of the three rivits. I would think that normal use of this strap and in no time those rivits will pull through the strap.
Over all the construction is good except for the strap. all of the exposed edges of the leather are sealed and the feel of the case is solid. For the price I think it is a hell of a deal.
I also should mention that the Imperial name cannot be found on this case ANYWHERE. Another nice feature
