Learn something new everyday, it would be interesting to know when they let the first GB1 cue out the door.
One of the interesting things is the Adam Balabushka prototypes that have made their way into the open market. No idea when they were made, but they may have been built or stamped/signed before the inked agreement.
The timeline is something like this:
Late 70's (maybe early 80's) - Forman approaches Tascarella for contact information for the the Balabushka family. Pete at the time was doing repair work for Adam USA (tips, ferrules, wraps) a couple days a week at the Adam USA repair facility. No, he didn't use Adam blanks, as the common myth reports. He initially used Szamboti and Spain/Davis blanks, and his brother-in-law built him fixtures to make blanks himself. He had unturned Szamboti blanks as a model.
October 1987 - The official licensing agreement between Adam Cues and the Balabushka family gets inked.
So, there's plenty of years between first contact and the ink deal. And there are these "prototype" with different lettering that aren't in any catalog. If the deal gets inked in Oct 1987, you'd think it would be in 1988 when the first GB1 rolled out. The cues were probably built (maybe) and the lag time between contract and release would be the time it takes to make a signature stamp and finish the cues. Maybe the "prototype" cues were just tests for the mechanical signature, and they came after the inked deal.
I've got my thoughts.
Freddie <~~~ myth buster