justabrake said:
just out of curiousity, here you have an old palmer cue for sale and the price is $3,200 and then you have a fairly new James White cue and the same value $3,200 both are up for auction on ebay right now! and just say they are worth that price right now (weather or not it's true) , what would you think of these 2 cues value in about 10 yrs. from know!
which one would hold more value in 2011?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Palmer-Supreme-...177947205QQcategoryZ21212QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/CUSTOM-FANCY-JA...177040467QQcategoryZ21212QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Steven
I think the Palmer would be more valuable, but this Palmer is overpriced. I would have been interested in seeing this auction start at $2,000, which would attract some action, and see where it goes from there.
The other thing is the ad leaves a lot to be desired from a collectors standpoint. There is almost no information and nothing about the ad that tells the buyer that the seller knows cues. The photo's are terrible. The cue could be very nice and collectible, or it could be coming apart at the seams - there's no way to tell. He says the case is original -maybe it is a plastic Fellini clone that has Palmer stamped on it, who knows, but it affects the value by a few hundred.
That being said, it is not without reason that someone with money will just pay the $3,200 if they think the cue is pristine, because it's there and easy, they want it, and there are no other "M"'s for sale in the usual spots at the moment.
It's unfair to compare antique collectibles with modern day customs because they are so different. Palmer was an undeniable contributor to the history, development, design and innovation of cues. Balner is in the Hall of Fame. No matter what happens, I can almost guarantee you nobody is going to dump Palmer "M"s on the open market in enough quantity to lower the value much.
It is very much like the stock market. When the price of collectibles drop, value buyers and fence sitters come in and scoop them up, which sends the prices back up.
Modern customs are pretty much "soup d'jour" as far as I'm concerned. There are too many. One day this guy is hot, the next day he's not. All customs are not collectible. What makes cues collectible is collectors. Paying full bore for a modern custom in the hopes that it may go up is going to produce a lot more losers than winners.
The difference is that antiques are limited and have a collectors following. You could probably dump 1,000 Palmers on the market and they will be picked up. It would be a buying frenzy. Every McDermott and Meucci collector (and there are a ton) who wanted to upgrade their collections would be scooping up Palmers.
Do the same with modern customs and the prices would halve. What happens if the maker goes out of style while you are waiting.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some modern names that are almost guaranteed to be historic collectibles. Will any be a Balner, Paradise, Rambow, Balabushka, or Szamboti? That remains to be seen.
Chris
