Nope they have absolutely no clue what it is, most think it's either a vintage Adam or one of those Chinese Balabushka things.
Honestly I'm ok with this.
Classic Cue Market Dying Off
- Thread starter Fast Lenny
- Start date
Honestly I'm ok with this.
So I use the same Triple 60 CF shaft across all my butts. So it doesn't matter if I swinging a Szamboti, Drexler or a Black the hit is very consistent.
I've always run off the 80/20 rule. The shaft is 80% of the hit and the butt is 20%. The butt is about transmission of the hit to the hand and the control stick for the shaft.
Anyone that has played pool in Las Vegas this month might strongly disagree. All of the league players from Fresno
not still competing returned and their tales about witnessing very expensive custom cues being sold is exciting. Cues priced way over $10k were sold and I’m not talking about just a couple of cues. I just received an offer of $10k for my Prewitt cue and if I could find a Hercek cue with my specs, I’d sell my EP cue in a heart beat. In fact, let me post this one last time since my prior attempts were in vain.
I am interested in a Joel Hercek cue with flat ivory joint, ferrules, radial or 3/8x10 pin, butt weight 14.5 ozs, shafts (min. 4 ozs & 12.5mm to 13m), ebony points, veneers and ebony butt. The cue design should be a Level 6 or higher with ivory or MOP inlays. The cue could be shipped to Baton Rouge, LA so the cue wouldn’t need to ship to CA. I’ll retrieve the cue. In fact, I’ll have money payment sent from Baton Rouge to avoid any legal worries. The purchase will be completed in my daughter’s name but I will make the decision on the cue acceptability and of course, the final price on just in case CA Fish & Wildlife patrols this website. This is completely legal or we could physically meet in Las Vegas if that were easier since once I am not within CA geographical boundaries the ivory ban does not have jurisdiction.
Everything I am hearing is that the expensive custom cue market is faring much better that the tone of so many posts I’ve read. An unsolicited offer of $10k for my Prewitt cue convinces me that there is a market and maybe the time is right to sell.
All I need to make this perfect is to replace my Prewitt cue with a Hercek cue I searched in vain for years to find. When pool players are spending $1200 for just a break cue, $500 for extra shafts, expensive chalks, custom leather cue cases, spending thousands for a custom cue fits right in with this pattern. Send me a PM if you know about a Hercek cue FS with my specs.
not still competing returned and their tales about witnessing very expensive custom cues being sold is exciting. Cues priced way over $10k were sold and I’m not talking about just a couple of cues. I just received an offer of $10k for my Prewitt cue and if I could find a Hercek cue with my specs, I’d sell my EP cue in a heart beat. In fact, let me post this one last time since my prior attempts were in vain.
I am interested in a Joel Hercek cue with flat ivory joint, ferrules, radial or 3/8x10 pin, butt weight 14.5 ozs, shafts (min. 4 ozs & 12.5mm to 13m), ebony points, veneers and ebony butt. The cue design should be a Level 6 or higher with ivory or MOP inlays. The cue could be shipped to Baton Rouge, LA so the cue wouldn’t need to ship to CA. I’ll retrieve the cue. In fact, I’ll have money payment sent from Baton Rouge to avoid any legal worries. The purchase will be completed in my daughter’s name but I will make the decision on the cue acceptability and of course, the final price on just in case CA Fish & Wildlife patrols this website. This is completely legal or we could physically meet in Las Vegas if that were easier since once I am not within CA geographical boundaries the ivory ban does not have jurisdiction.
Everything I am hearing is that the expensive custom cue market is faring much better that the tone of so many posts I’ve read. An unsolicited offer of $10k for my Prewitt cue convinces me that there is a market and maybe the time is right to sell.
All I need to make this perfect is to replace my Prewitt cue with a Hercek cue I searched in vain for years to find. When pool players are spending $1200 for just a break cue, $500 for extra shafts, expensive chalks, custom leather cue cases, spending thousands for a custom cue fits right in with this pattern. Send me a PM if you know about a Hercek cue FS with my specs.
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I am playing with a solid piece of wood with a 3/8 x 10 pin, an extension from another cue in the middle that has a G10 pin
3/8x 10 and a solid maple shaft from another cue (South East). This combo plays better than anything I've ever used.
Very close to a broomstick with a shaft on it.
That must feel good, i would like the fact nobody knew. Many years ago i had the privilege of seeing one up close. It was together with a szamboti and a rambow. Not something, you see every day.
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Performance (or “perceived” performance, gimmick or not) is currently in higher demand than craftsmanship. Free market, get off my lawn, etc. If you bought it to enjoy, enjoy. If you bought it to flip, whoops
Yeah lots of flippers watching some high dollar cues that they forked out for drop in value every day.
And yes, as was mentioned a few post above, there are a small handful of modern makers whose cues are in high demand and for each one of them there are many many more who's cues are treading water in value or have gone fully under.
Martin's and Rambows are perfect examples of cues that people were buying for 3k to 4k about 12.years ago that now can't sell above 2k. I mean shit, people keep listing them for high 2's to low 3's but they never, ever sell.
At some point these owners are either gonna die with these cues where they will get scrapped by children who have no clue what they are. Or there just going to have to grit their teeth, eat the loss, and let these cues go for $900 to $1200 or whatever the market is willing to pay.
That is if they want to get them into the hands of other collectors vs ShopGoodWill.com
RidgeRaider
Well-known member
Thank God I don't break a few cues every season in the zamboni doors
Does this mean pool as a game/sport are making a come back ?
There's more people playing pool now than in the last 30-40yrs. WAY more pro pool, leagues and yes Virginia, Fargo has made a huge impact in the number of tournaments around the US. Go on DigitalPool and sweat the number of events being played EVERY week.
RidgeRaider
Well-known member
I'm not being argumentative, but I must disagree.
I'm a fledgling cue maker, and partly why I became a cue maker is because of the un-tapped custom market near me. The custom market is tapped, actually, but the mid-level affordable custom market is untapped.
Everyone I know and shoot pool with would LOVE to own a custom cue. What they don't love is the 2-5 year waitlist and $2k-$5k price tag. I can build merry widows and full splice blanks pretty quick as far as custom cues go, and I can do them affordably for the buyer and myself. Most of the merry widows I've sold have been $500 and under, and a lot of the full splices I've sold for $350. Want a carbon fiber shaft with it? $200 extra. Is it all inlayed and using the most exotic woods? No. But it's absolutely a custom cue, 1 of 1, and they hold their own against the big name custom makers. I own a custom Schon that is worth $1,800+ and I won't grab that before I grab any of my full core cues I've made.
I don't do this as a business, so I don't have to be concerned with maximizing profits. I do this as a hobby and service to the good pool players in my area. It's easy to get greedy when you see the profits are there and the damn cues basically sell themselves. I've sold every cue from just playing with it and people asking about them.
A lot of times people don't know what they want until you put it in front of them and in their hands. Turns out, A LOT of people want an affordable custom cue. The biggest difference between people of my age, and the older folk, is that the older crowd has / had patience and understood quality costed a lot of money. I think they got took advantage of on the quality to cost ratio though when it came to a lot of the cues people bought. Regardless, people my age want stuff now, and they don't want to have to save for months / years for it. So when you offer something that they can own either right now or very soon, and for a price they can just withdraw from the ATM and not have to budget much for, you have what the people my age want.
Also, people my age aren't nostalgic for the past. This means they don't care about Rambow, or Balabushka, or Runde. They don't know who those guys are / were, and they won't ever care. They don't care whose name is on the cue, they just care if they can say to their buddies "Yeah, it's a custom!" and "It plays way better than my McDermott!".
Come to the Midwest and go in any poolroom. The # of custom cues has shrunk massively while #'s of Cuetec/Pred/imports has grown almost exponentially. The only people who buy/use customs anymore is the age group i mentioned and older. The current/next gen of players has no interest in the cues we all grew up lusting after.
RidgeRaider
Well-known member
I live in Wisconsin. I fully understand what you mean. But it's not because the custom market is dead, it's because the over priced, extremely long wait list custom cue market is dead.
People really don't prefer a production line cue, they prefer the price of it, and the "get it now" factor.
I wonder how long will this scence keep up. I dont see much younger generation playing. Most people I see are like baby boomers or millennial. I rarely see Gen Z, let's alone Alpha
This I agreed, custom cue makers dont automatically make the cue itself good either. It will be a cool factor to tell someone, my cuestick is a custom. But custom made based on what parameters? What sciences ? Based on those, Predator and other Branded on the markets are given a much better reputations. They have a motto, a philosophy behind them, like Meucci for example.
Beside, waiting for 2 years, and paying about as expensive as a flagship predator or Meucci ? I rather go with the later 2
I go by what i see and that is production cues ruling the market. The custom cue 'mystique' that used to exist is deader than Elvis. Just look at the sheer number of cues under,say, 1000bux in the production cue market. People want something to use that is relatively inexpensive and plays good. They could not care less about ordering/waiting on a cue that won't play any better. Go to Derby or SBE and look at the age group buying hi-end customs then go to any large regional tournament. Start counting the customs at the tournament and you'll see my point.
I mostly agree with garczar’s posts but I beg to differ. When I see players spending well over a grand for just only a break cue, more like $1300, and also carry multiple CF shafts, players are spending a lot of money already. Now custom cues do cost more but having a cue built the way you want it made, to your exact specifications, doesn’t have to cost many thousands of dollars unless you want a fancy design. Personally, I’d rather spend $1500-$2k on a custom made SP with fancy rings and Kielwood shafts. I’d pick a nice wood and have the cue built to my exact specs. It would play better than buying a used custom cue for more money that did not have all the specs I wanted so why would I settle for less? The appearance of a cue has nothing to do with how it plays versus how the cue was built…..IMO.
I see ya bro. How old are you? Guessing over 50? I'm 65 and all i see is production cues coming in Magoo's. I have a Jensen i never use, my daily is a $90 chinese J&J sneaky. In Tulsa you used to see all kinds of nice stuff but the pool scene died and in its comeback you never see custom stuff. Hell, our old in-house builder, Eddie Farris, had to sell chinese prod. stuff just to pay the bills, no one was ordering custom. Its the same in Dallas, Houston, KC, DesMoines. The Midwest has some great builders but their client base is shrinking by the year.