cueaddicts said:
That's an incredible old Palmer.....a SUPER find.
Don't know if I totally agree with this last part of your statement, though. Throughout their stint, Palmer was a production company (true) but they took many custom orders, as well, especially from the well-known players. Most all the butt caps from that time period are the cream colored translucent plastic, but Delrin was readily available in the mid-'60s so it's possible that a cue may have been ordered that way. For that reason, I try to think of them as a quasi-production company. You're going to see some unusual stuff here and there.
That's what makes it tough when trying to determine subtle things like this with old cues, especially Palmers. Now, if the 'work' is obviously new, that's another story....
Sean
You are right about customs. I've seen so many hybrid cues, forearm of this design with butt of that design, nothing surprises me.
I suppose some could have been made that way, but a lot of buttcaps were broken because the cues didn't necessarily come with bumpers, and the plastic they used was brittle, so I would first assume it was replaced.
They would have been better off with Delrin since Delrin seems to be a more pliable material than the brittle plastic.
I wouldn't let a replaced buttcap bother me much anyway. I bought an old Palmer 1st catalog cue that had a hole drilled through the buttcap. Someone hung the cue up on a nail I guess. The rest of the cue was sound. I had a buttcap made for it and we duplicated the shape precisely and from an identical plastic - it looks exactly like the original and I have since even forgotten it was replaced.
The ones that are hard to replace are the pearl buttcaps. The current pearl rod available is not the right stuff. I am going to have a plastics company duplicate several versions of the Palmer pearl for me. There was a translucent cream, and a silver/white that were used on most of their cues that had pearl. The M and the L were the first ones really. The swirls were soft and cloudy, not streaked.
You're not kidding that Palmers varied a lot. I've counted these 8 different distinct joints alone, to say nothing of the myriad of mix and match components and materials, about 30 diffreent configurations altogether - all 5/16 X 18:
- Very Early joint which was a thin walled collar and a long wood tenon on the piloted part of the shaft, an insert with no shoulder.
- Same thing, but with a shoulder on the insert and a shorter tenon.
- Either of these arrangements with a hollow pin
-Either of these with a solid pin
- slightly thicker collar, first catalog version.
- second catalog thicker wall joint collar, brass or nickle siver, shorter shaft pilot, shoulder insert
- Third catalog, even thicker wall joint collar, shaft insert with a short straight shoulder which acts as the pilot, brass or stainless.
- Post third catalog, 1980's joint with larger diameter joint, thick wall, short straight insert which acts as a pilot.
That's why it's hard to buy a used shaft for them - who knows what will fit?
Chris
