Dufferin Canada cues - pool cue industry in Canada

[shojingod]

A little venting.

Dufferin Canada cues are the cues people in the US praised but never bought (at least originally). Only Canadians bought them because US cues were too expensive for the general crowd and the Chinese cues at the time were so bad. Dufferin Canada would have survived better if they would have updated their cue making to more American style making. They had access to great material but in many ways spoiled it with poor manufacturing and finishing not allowing the wood to stabilize so of course many had the shaft warp on them. It is not surprising that Dufferin declined once the Asia cue making improved with better quality control and American cue making process. We do a search on eBay Canada for Dufferin you find a whole lot of cues all in Canada(no one buying on average). The funny thing is that American's are taking the few good cues that Dufferin produced that survived not warping and are custom converting them like I did with mine. Taking the quality wood they used and properly finish them. Why Dufferin didn't get with it and did it themselves? Stupidity, greed (fast and done)

In a way I find it sad and a waste. This should be a lesson to the Canadian pool industry if any still exist. We had Dufferin, Gone. We had Falcon, gone.

Let hope the custom guys( the very few we have) can take over the slack and produce good reasonably priced cues that Canadians will buy. If they actual service the Canadian market, which is some way I don't blame them to go toward the American and Europeans(I'm talking to you Layani). Canada has undervalued our dollars for years which help the big money industries but screwed over everybody that makes a living in Canada. Your dollar is as good as what you can buy with it. Your dollar is worth less; you make less and don't anybody tell you differently.

 

[garczar]

A little venting.

Dufferin Canada cues are the cues people in the US praised but never bought (at least originally). Only Canadians bought them because US cues were too expensive for the general crowd and the Chinese cues at the time were so bad. Dufferin Canada would have survived better if they would have updated their cue making to more American style making. They had access to great material but in many ways spoiled it with poor manufacturing and finishing not allowing the wood to stabilize so of course many had the shaft warp on them. It is not surprising that Dufferin declined once the Asia cue making improved with better quality control and American cue making process. We do a search on eBay Canada for Dufferin you find a whole lot of cues all in Canada(no one buying on average). The funny thing is that American's are taking the few good cues that Dufferin produced that survived not warping and are custom converting them like I did with mine. Taking the quality wood they used and properly finish them. Why Dufferin didn't get with it and did it themselves? Stupidity, greed (fast and done)

In a way I find it sad and a waste. This should be a lesson to the Canadian pool industry if any still exist. We had Dufferin, Gone. We had Falcon, gone.

Let hope the custom guys( the very few we have) can take over the slack and produce good reasonably priced cues that Canadians will buy. If they actual service the Canadian market, which is some way I don't blame them to go toward the American and Europeans(I'm talking to you Layani). Canada has undervalued our dollars for years which help the big money industries but screwed over everybody that makes a living in Canada. Your dollar is as good as what you can buy with it. Your dollar is worth less; you make less and don't anybody tell you differently.

They went bankrupt around '04. Jim Lucas(Lucasi, Players) of Cue=n=Case bought the brand and moved production to China. Ernie C. shut down the Falcon plant when exchange-rate tanked. He still builds Falcon and Bear in Taiwan/China.

 

[MmmSharp]

An older thread, but i want to say the older dufferins were decent to great cues depending on which cue. The majority of the issues with warping is on the owners. I say this because i am a canadian owner of a few dufferins, and the only ones that warped was my fault. Same with friends.

One of my best friends worked at dufferin up to the time they shut down. He even spent time in the cue shop. He has alot of the more rare dufferins and some seconds.

Canadian dufferin cues are good value cues. Good players if you find a straight one. But remember you will be hard pressed to find any production maker with as many 20-30 year old cues still out there being used. I would say the quality control was good given that.

 

[Geosnookery]

I have a dozen or so older Dufferin cues. I get them at the thrift stores for $5 to $8 (along with other cues). Never seen a poorly made one. Having said that, I never found any difference between their ( red maple leaf) low and high end Snooker lines for playing. The difference is in the aesthetics.

I give away a cue a couple times a year to some newbie. I always choose a
Dufferin as they are well made and last forever. Among older players in the groups I play in, Dufferins are popular. Younger players have other makers but they tend to change cues looking for ‘the magic one’.

I didn’t know the Dufferin name was used after they left Canada. I got a Marvel ‘Spiderman’ cue and case at a thrift store last year, says ‘Dufferin’ but likely made in China.

 

[MmmSharp]

I admit to jumping cues around. I just love trying something new . Custom cues hit so differently from each other i just love learning about how different makers do different things.

The leafs on dufferins don't typically mean much. The shop would often use whatever was handy. That's coming from the guys in the shop. They would try to keep them somewhat uniform but you can find different color leafs in any cue depending.

 

[Geosnookery]

Thanks for the info on the maple leaf inset. I’ve had mostly reds, a green and a silver leaf ( nay have been gold) in black. All the Dufferin pool cues two piece and mostly one piece maple snooker cues.

The weights vary between cues. Usually I’m not fussy about weight but seems more noticeable on Dufferins than other. Perhwps something to do with balance point..

 

[shojingod]

An older thread, but i want to say the older dufferins were decent to great cues depending on which cue. The majority of the issues with warping is on the owners. I say this because i am a canadian owner of a few dufferins, and the only ones that warped was my fault. Same with friends.

One of my best friends worked at dufferin up to the time they shut down. He even spent time in the cue shop. He has alot of the more rare dufferins and some seconds.

Canadian dufferin cues are good value cues. Good players if you find a straight one. But remember you will be hard pressed to find any production maker with as many 20-30 year old cues still out there being used. I would say the quality control was good given that.

Dufferin is not junk, don't get me wrong they were a decent cue but they were in ways behind the time in the manufacturing process of a good American style cue even during the time when they made a majority of their production in Canada. 20 to 30 years test is a easy one. Joss, Schon, Mali, McDermott, Falcon, Viking, Lucasi, Helmstetter, Pechauer, etc, etc. I have a 26 year old Falcon myself. My gripe is they had much potential to go from decent, to a higher level of production cue. I have one of the most expensive Dufferin sold in the 90's which I believed I paid 215$ at the time but of course I didn't know any better at the time. 5 years later I got a Falcon then I realized wow this Dufferin cue when it comes to finishing, alignment, precision is ruff as hell and the price was not much a different between it and my Falcon. I kept that cue in good condition for 20 years then when I found a custom cue maker I had it custom converted fixing pretty much all the short coming. The woods in that Dufferin was not cheap (Cocobolo, Ebony butt). Remember I am speaking about American style pool cues, not snooker cues many believe there is not much difference between them. They would be wrong. Dufferin made very good snooker cues and made the mistake of making pool cues like snooker cues with larger tips. What I'm been seeing is the good Dufferin cues that survived get bought off by American's for really, really cheap then get custom converted. Ask yourself why? Some of the maple used was for sure old growth maple from Quebec and Ontario very tight grain. It pains me now knowing that they had access to some amazing wood and made decent out of it. Dufferin never did any type of comparison analysis between themselves and other cue makers. Falcon did not make that mistake they learned from Dan Janes of Joss and made a great f*&$ cue. In a way Falcon killed Dufferin. When Falcon came in Dufferin pool cues had a hard time. I see lot of those Aluminum joint Dufferin pool cues on Ebay selling for 20 bucks and nobody buy them. If your buying Dufferin cues for 5 to 10 dollars at thrift store that's go to tell you something. Let me know if you ever see a Canadian Falcon in a thrift store.

 

[Pierre Shakes]

Dufferin went under not because of the quality of their cues, but because they started a franchise system called Dufferin Games Room. They required franchisees to lease in malls, which are high-rent. And then they foolishly co-signed those leases. When the operators found that they were paying more for wholesale from Dufferin than ToysRUs was charging retail...they just walked away. And a sound business was destroyed.

 

[Ed13]

I was talking to an employee at FG Bradley a few weeks ago about Dufferin cues. They told me FG Bradley bought Dufferin (I assume only the name) and they make and sell Dufferin products as a store brand.

 

[Shawn Armstrong]

I was talking to an employee at FG Bradley a few weeks ago about Dufferin cues. They told me FG Bradley bought Dufferin (I assume only the name) and they make and sell Dufferin products as a store brand.

Lol. They lied to you. Par for the course at FG.

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

Dufferin made two piece Cues for Connely’s Billiard Stores. I have one SP style with wrap.

Paid peanut for it why Connely’s was closing in Goodyear, AZ.

Should have bought more.🥹

 

[erle flad]

I have a Dufferin Zodiac cue - don't know much else about it but it is straight and solid as a rock - I use it as a break cue. A guy at the local flea market was asking $20 for it, I got it for 15 - surprisingly in almost perfect condition!

 

[mikemosconi]

Dufferin cues are about the ONLY one piece cues that you can still find straight after sitting in a cue rack for the past 40 years + or so in senior centers and VFW posts around the U.S. You can also often find, on Ebay - U.S. and Canada - several mint condition Dufferin cues - two piece butterfly flame veneer style - that are either already two piece wood to wood jointed cues or their aluminum jointed cues that can also be converted. I have found many of these two piece cues to be very straight as well.

 

[mikemosconi]

An older thread, but i want to say the older dufferins were decent to great cues depending on which cue. The majority of the issues with warping is on the owners. I say this because i am a canadian owner of a few dufferins, and the only ones that warped was my fault. Same with friends.

One of my best friends worked at dufferin up to the time they shut down. He even spent time in the cue shop. He has alot of the more rare dufferins and some seconds.

Canadian dufferin cues are good value cues. Good players if you find a straight one. But remember you will be hard pressed to find any production maker with as many 20-30 year old cues still out there being used. I would say the quality control was good given that.

I have a few very old, original Dufferin cues back when they did not yet put the maple leaf inside the glass window on the cue butt. These vintage Dufferin cues had the letter D inside a letter C on the cue butt ( Canadian Dufferin). Those very old Dufferins were well seasoned hardwood cue butts- mine is Pau Ferro and so incredibly beautiful as a solid wood cue butt with a flame veneer butterfly splice . I got my cues directly from Canadiens and these were closet queen cues from the 70s, early 80s in mint condition 2 piece cues. These cues stayed straight for about 50 years now and you can get upgraded 12.5MM shafts from a Canadian company - F. G. Bradley with the aluminum joint, which, if you put a high quality soft tip on these shafts- the cue plays fantastic!

 

[MmmSharp]

I have seen that model, very nice looking cue. Fg bradleys isnt too far trom me. They sell the dufferin cues that are made in china now. I never liked the aluminum joint though. I watch for old dufferins to to be posted. I picked up a never used canadian made red leaf pau ferro into maple full splice back in 2017 or so for 50 cad. Forearm slightly popped. Crazy clean loking cue.

 

[DaveK]

... Those very old Dufferins were well seasoned hardwood cue butts-

The founder/owner Al Selinger knew wood (link is to a very brief history of Dufferin):

Chapter17

I got my cues directly from Canadiens ...

Brave man.

Dave <-- Canadian and owns several Dufferin Phantoms from the 1990s and an interesting Dufferin that has a flat laminated shaft AND forearm.

PS oh ya, my table is also a Dufferin, one from very early in their table business