Cue culture of yesteryear

[Carl]

Today a newcomer to the game can quickly learn about cuemakers from around the country, and easily find a first-rate player from a production company or a custom shop. Come to this site, or go to another pool site, or search Ebay, or Google "pool cues." It won't be long before the names are as familiar as Chrysler and Ford.

It couldn't have been so easy to become known as a cuemaker before the Internet shrunk the world. I've tried to figure out whether in years past there were anywhere near the number of quality cuemakers as today. The ICA has a Hall of Fame, but it's a short list. http://www.internationalcuemakers.com/?page=halloffame

The ACA has a Hall of Fame, too. Another short list, mostly the same people. http://www.cuemakers.org/aca-awds.htm

Maybe the craft of cuemaking has advanced and the techniques are so well-known that becoming a quality cuemaker isn't the feat it once was. As much as we romanticize the days before the CNC and superglue, it is possible that todays equipment and materials make it far easier to produce a consistently good product with less effort and skill. Or maybe there were always quality cuemakers serving a local market, producing cues just as good as today's, but never getting widespread attention. If so, who were they and what's left of their legacy?

If a player in, say, 1985 wanted a cue, what was the drill? Buy a production cue? If so, who were the big producers, and where did a buyer go -- the local pool hall? Other than Balabushka, Rambow, Meucci, and the other few mentioned in the ICA and BCA Halls of Fame, who were the popular cuemakers? Are there examples of their work still around?

Maybe part of the answer is in the Bluebook of Cues, which I don't have. Still, I'm curious about the experience of those who were in the game before information was so cheap.

 

[Cuaba]

Before the "Billiards Encyclopedia" few people knew anything about cues. A lot of fakes or misrepresentations were being sold, and prices were all over the map.

Now the amount of information available is amazing.

 

[Siz]

When I was cue buying in the early 80's (albeit in a different continent to yourself), I grew tired of waiting for someone to invent the web and turned to magazines.

At that time, there were 2 or 3 cue sport magazines, and any custom cue maker who wanted to avoid starvation advertised in them. But the market for top end cues was effectively cornered by two participants, who between them could boast most of the top professionals as customers. Other makers of custom cues were left fighting over the scraps.

The production cue market was similarly dominated by a small number of manufacturers. Rather it was dominated by a small number of distributors/retailers who had reasonably strong brands, and would 'badge' cues sourced from heaven knows where.

However I suspect that the situation here (in the UK) has probably always been different from in the US: here there has never been a tradition of fancy, decorative, cues - the sole criterion is playability which is a difficult thing to pin down. This makes it a nightmare for buyers, who have no way of telling in advance whether the cue has the requisite amount of pixie dust (as one cue maker on this forum put it). No doubt this explains the power of brand and professional endorsement.

The internet has certainly made an impact on the cue market this side of the Atlantic. A new cue maker can set up shop, and with a half decent website design should attract some interest from billiard loving surfers. What's more, having made some sales there is every prospect of referrals, courtesy of forums like this.

As time goes on, I find myself wondering how on earth we managed before the Internet - and I fully expect my grandchildren to refuse to accept that we ever could have!