Everyone is against production-made cues?

You are a smart man fast Davie!

Over the years I've owned a lot of cues, mostly production. Seems to me the disease is that I will never own a custom or a production cue that will end my quest for that holy grail perfect hitting cue for me. Collecting anything, in my case guitars, coins, cues, is a a never ending passion. My girlfriend asked me why I haven't started to collect dust since I collect everything else.

If I play with someones cue at the club and it feels good, I WANT IT. I'm the same with golf clubs, and the golf industry knows it and feeds on people like me. I have a brother in law who buys a set of irons once a season. I just wait until he hates his current set and he passes it on to me (at a deep discount) The trick is to convince him to buy the set That I like. Just kidding. Just look at all of the beautiful cues/cases for sale or trade here on AZ. I think we all suffer from the same affliction lol. Its fun.
Bottom line-you are lucky to be happy with your present cues.

To put your question in perspective, My new need/desire is to own a full splice titlist conversion. Do I need it? No! Oddly enough most of these started life, or were originally designed for the bowling alleys and bars of the world. Why? Because they were well constructed, cheap or should I say inexpensive, production cues. Who knew!! I still miss my McD D10.
 
anyone ever watch bob meucci use his myth destroyer machine awhile back? i di and watched him hit with his shafts and anyone who walked to the table with theirs. saw alot of shafts from alot of the makers that people wait years to have one of their cues and was blown away by the deflection difference, only one shaft i saw was close to meucci!

now granted for me personally bob made one of the best playing cues out there and that whip of the old days was something that is a thing of the past, and now his cues to me personally are now where near what they were which is a sad shame!!

so how do you guys feel about the shafts, how much is in that compared to a well made butt? no pun intended
 
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trustyrusty said:
Funny how that happens from time to time....I have a buddy who has a Mexican made strat (Fender) that is the best playing guitar I've ever tried (including CUSTOM SHOP ones that cost 10X what his did). I know the guitar reference won't fit with most of the readers, but I'm sure there are production cues out there that would knock your socks off if only you could find "the one". BTW, one day I will break into his house and steal it since I know he'll never give that sucker up LOL J/K of course, or am I???!!! :p
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I can totally relate to this... i have a epiphone masterbilt made in CHINA and I swear with some Martin strings it sounds better than any gibson I go pick up off the wall of the nearest guitar center. I'm sure cues could be the same way. You just have to find a good one.

f:cool:
 
Custom vs Production

I have a Runde and a Schon. In my mind, my Runde is custom, where my Schon is production. Why? My Runde is a one of one. It wasn't made for me, or for anyone in particular. But you will never see another one like it. Yes, Runde does have cues that he has made 5 of 5. Does that make it production. Yes, very limited production. My Schon is an STL1. Who knows how many there are out there. I guess I see something as custom when it is one of one and custom made for you when it is to your specs. Production brings to mind a production line. You can get 10 plain janes from the same maker, with the same woods and rings, but I will wager that they where all made at different times. Schon is on the custom/production fence at all times. They make their cues in small batches and start over. I honestly don't know about the other big boys, but I guess that they make these cues in a production line environment.
 
Custom vs Production

A very wise man once told me ..If you can't play with any of them .. You can't play with any of them.
 
IMHO Bob Meucci started as a custom cue maker. Look at some of his work but he let the money thing take over. I own a older meucci M-8 and it is my everyday player. Took a HOF #2 in on trade just not the same. There are a lot of thing different in a production and a custom . But what are the OB-1 shafts and 314 shaft arent they production shafts. If production is not as good as a custom why do ppl with the High Dollar Custom cues go out and buy this production shafts to go on there custom cue. If you took a Meucci 19 oz BEM SP with a OB-1 shaft do you think the hit would be much different if you took that same shaft and put it on a custom BEM SP. I think not I might be wrong. Again this is just MHO.
 
I say just playing with all of them and find out what will work for you based on your budget. There are a lot of production and custom cues out in the market that will play much better than a 150,000 cue with a cheap tip on it. Playability is very subjective for every cues due to various factors that can include quality, sentimental value and time value with the playing cue (s). Someone playing with the same cue for 30 years tell you he found the best playing cue for him/herself.

There will always be players that will swear by their meucci, schon and falcon and there's going to be players that will love custom cues from some of today best builders. So whatever you think is the best players for you may not be for others.

From my personal experience, I can say there are some production/ semi custom cues especially schon cues that plays as good if not better than some custom cues but there are also a lot of custom cues that will play much better than most of the production stuff out there. If you haven't try them..then it hard for you to know the difference. There are lot of good players out there that don't understand what make a good cue but I'm sure there are a lot of builders out there that will agree what quality constitute a good playing cue. I'm sure there are production cues that will meet these qualities but I don't think there are many out there.

I think Alex Pagulayan to this day still play his best pool with an R12 schon and a predator shaft. You can give him a szamboti but he won't use anything else unless it's his old reliable schon that he won the world with. When he lost his schon cue during a flight and he had to play in the US Open...he didn't get past first round because he wasn't playing with his schon cue.

The point is...only you can determine what is the best when it come to cue..whether is a custom or production. However, just because it the nut to you doesn't mean it going to be the best playing cue to other. My best playing cue is a 21 oz Joel Weinstock and it one of the best playing cue that I've ever used and I had many over the last ten years. I've played with about every cues that available on the market but nothing plays like the Joel W. that I have...it's just perfect for me. When I let other try it..some agree and some think it's too heavy for them.

Quality will always be quality.....demand and supply in the market is sometime a good indication of quality. Schon is a hot seller and has good re-sale value for a reason...same goes for southwest, sugartree,etc. Is one better than another? Maybe but just remember who judging.

Regards,
Duc.
 
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Well put if you are happy with what you shoot with then who cares if it is production or custom. The main thing is to have fun at this great sport that we all love.
 
Custin or production

the best playing cues that I have had or played with always had a great shaft and tip, custom or production. My Viking, which I got for my 15th birthday was a great playing cue. Pretty much every cue I have had played great. Never owned a dog, but have played with one or two, and they were both from the same maker that everyone here seems to love. One had the worst shaft wood I had ever seen and the other was just dead. Both were tim scruggs. Every cue is different. My $30 dollar falcon sneaky with an unknown layered tip that I bought at a pawn shop is still my favorite cue to date. I could do anything with that cue. I sold it to a friend that plays for money and he wouldn't get ride of that cue for anything.
 
I can't lie, older Meuccis are still my guilty pleasure! Love the whippy shaft that you can draw the rock a country mile with!
 
CTYankee said:
My wife has an early 90's cheap Meucci (European Series E-1) that plays so well it is ridiculous. I have put it in the hands of a few true pool cue snobs, and they are just as head over heals for this cue as I am. Of course it is bright purple (God really does have a sense of humor), or else it would be mine. :)
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if it plays that well you should keep it for yourself. who cares what it looks like
 
I have a few reasons why I prefer customs

- 1000 other people dont have the same cue

- Id prefer to have 1 or 2 experts build me a cue rather than an assembley line of unskilled workers(Im assuming theres an assembley line for the production cues or something similar, but I am unsure of this).

-One persons name is on the cue, not the name of a vicious animal or a murder weapon.

-If I decide to move to a different type of cue, custom cues generally resell for closer to the original cost price or higher in some cases than a production will.

-IMO the quality of materials is better. If A big production company buys 10000 shafts, I doubt they will be as discriminating as a guy who buys 100 when it comes time to select the woods for cues

I still like some production cues though, I just prefer customs.
 
There're are plenty of production cues that're worth owning. some are hit or miss and some are fairly consistent. at the end of the day if you like it it's probably what you should be playing with. it doesn't really matter if it's production or custom
 
So True

Like your Thinking Knight.:thumbup:

Knight-of-Pool said:
If production is not as good as a custom why do ppl with the High Dollar Custom cues go out and buy this production shafts to go on there custom cue.
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I like em older

JCIN said:
There is a famous quote in shooting circles:

"Only accurate rifles are interesting" ~ Colonel Townsend Wheelen

I guess for many here it would be:

"Only custom/rare/old cues are interesting"

I happen to agree. Plastic inlays and round points just don't blow my hair back. They all will make balls but there is something about a nice custom that just makes you feel good. :D To me most of the McDermott D line and the old Schons have as much or more appeal than many of the custom cues being made today. But production was a little different back then I think.

That is not to say all custom cues are good because they are custom. There is a lot of bad wood out there. Play with what you like and enjoy it. Everything else is noise.
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I like the older Schons and McDermotts way better as well .The new stuff
looks too much like they are rushed or on the verge of being sold at Wally world .
David your older McDermott to this day is one of the best hitting cues
I have had in my hands.I like my Omens and Hightower cues cause I know
both of the makers and have seen 1st hand all the work and craftsmenship
put into each cue . Its almost like a energy thing to where some of that goes
with me into my game.I am now sounding like one of my ex girlfriends here but
I almost bought a cue from another cuemaker one time and then I met him
and he was just ....well not as nice as I think people in business need to be,
so I did not buy a cue from him.
 
manwon said:
Rember Robert Weir Cues

You mean Helmstetter cues, because that is built them Mr. Weir, he was just a dishonest individual who marketed them as his. They were however, nice cues by the way, I just sold a few I had for years to a collector
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I know all about them and I have a story to go with it. :-)
 
i'm sure that someone has mentioned it but i did it for specific specs, balance point, butt diameter, joint
 
Gina Cue

If you watch the Gina cue interview on TAR you will see that Ernie has set up his shop so that every machine does one task.

If you watch the McDermott Cue Factory tour video then you can see that every machine is set up to do one task.

If you go into the Kao Kao cue factory you will see that every machine is set up to do one task.

At Gina Cue Ernie Gutierrez is a master at EVERY task involved in making cues from selecting the wood to putting on the tip. Ernie is responsible for the quality of the product at every stage and inspects the product at every stage.

At McDermott cue most people are adept at their given task and there is probably some quality control at each stage. Not many people at McDermott however could build a cue from start to finish by themselves.

At Kao Kao each person is adept at their task and there is some quality control at each stage but there isn't a single person in the factory that can build a cue from start to finish by themselves.

This is the primary difference between a "custom" cue maker and a production cue maker.

The custom cuemaker can adjust instantly to any need. The production cue maker cannot adjust so easily.

The custom maker has much greater choice over which materials are used and how they are used. The production maker has to feed a production cycle and as such must come to an acceptable average concerning material.

Make no mistake, when you pay thousands of dollars for a cue you are are also paying for the wood that the custom cue maker rejected and the mistakes he made to make a nearly perfect cue.

Now because the production cue maker has an average quality level they use then that means that sometimes you will see a production cue made with outstanding wood and sometime you will see one with wood that isn't so great.

But as far as playability goes you have every chance of getting a jam up player right off the production line. I wish I still had my D-1 McDermott with the Irish linen wrap. That cue was so sweet.
 
great points. Its like buying fruit at the store: you have a bin of apples and you pick the best ones and leave the rest. A guy who sells apple pies(or whatever, I dont even know what the hell Im trying to say anymore) might have to buy everything in the bin regardless of quality because he needs that many.
 
just prefer great hitting cue - production or custom

Always looking for a great hitting cue - production or custom. At this point I am slowly making a transition from production (Joss) to custom (Klien). Would love to feel the hit of a a Southwest or Lambros cue but I have not come across any of these in league or tournament play at local level.

I'll just wait my time for the opportunity to try out the higher end custom cues - maybe find a deal but at some point you have to weigh out the cost. It is still fun to appreciate the craftmanship that goes into the customs, even though I still prefer a traditional, simple look.

For now, my best strategy is to look for a player cue and put money on the best tip I can buy.

Agree with several others that finding a production cue from the 70"s or 80"s may be a good option.
 
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