I dunno if this is a new trend, but Ebay has had a ton of Dale Perry cues direct from their factory going for super cheap prices. I dunno what the auction close prices are but I'll keep an eye out.
Dale at one time tried the tradititonal dealer and trade advertsing distribution route at high prices. At one point he must have gotten frustrated and started selling on e-bay.
I don't know exactly when he started selling on E-Bay, but it was at least 7 years ago or more. Initially, he only sold two or three cues a week, all with no reserve. If I recall, he waited for an auction to end before listing another cue. They often came with two shafts. I remember back then we had to fight to get them, and they would get $500 pretty easily, even for a plain cue.
The first DP I bought was back about then, maybe 6 years ago, a really nice maple burl forearm - it was beautiful with ebony points, striking burl figure. I've never seen another cue like it. It was CNC but you had to look closely to see rounded edges because he used a fine point. The cue played fine. His shafts were fat at the joint and the taper was stiff. I think I paid $700 on auction with two shafts. I also had him build a 30" shaft for it - he charged around $100 and I had it in a week.
I played with the cue for a few months, it was stiff and not very lively and was a little thin in the handle area. I liked it OK except I found something I liked better and eventually sold it for about what I paid.
Then I watched over the years as his prices dropped, he sold more and more cues per week, put on a cheap reserve, sometimes offering the same cue and not selling it, etc.
I haven't paid attention to his auctions for the last few years, but when I was paying attention, some of what I think hurt his rep was:
- He sold a lot of really bad sneaky pete's, he put his shafts on cheap house cue butts, with very uneven points, etc. He should not have put his name on some of these.
- For the longest time, he used the Uniloc quick release joint. I don't know what was wrong with those things but I had problems with both of mine, the parts came loose and buzzed (sometimes even falling apart). After too many years of suffering through these, he finally switched to the radial.
- Too many (too frequent) auctions on e-bay. His following couldn't support the many new cues he was offering, plus the buyers on e-bay were re-selling the cues they bought from him too - soon Dale Perry cues were as common as McDermott's - not a good thing to keep values up.
- Reserve auctions - he switched to reserve when the values got too low. Many of the reserve cues were offered and not sold. Some were listed multiple times and the exclusivity suffered when they couldn't be sold, even at embarassingly low prices. Eventually he went to one shaft presumably because prices were so low.
I think Dale was successful on e-bay at one time, but if he is making much money on it now I would be surprised. I agree he does have a fairly large following - and it's pretty much all derived from e-bay.
Chris
