GC4 DID offer optional score counters

[iusedtoberich]

The piano black GCs were artistic failures also….I talked a friend out of buying a pool hall full of them at a trade show by telling him to
lay his hand on a rail….you could see enough of his finger prints to call it forensic evidence.

There is a room in Philly full of them. The formica is so worn, that the black has completely worn through in many areas. Not from damage like balls hitting the rails. But rather just from touching the rails with hands. They still play amazing though.

 

[rexus31]

I mentioned his credential to show that he knows tables and pool inside and out. He even added that whole section about how he would personally fix all the counters on the older tables he had when the mechanic was there for reclothing, and that's why he opted to go non-counter on the 4. That's a pretty good indicator that he remembers the situation well.

Can you link me the build sheet you mentioned a few posts back? I couldn't find it. Thank you.

Table - 2002 | Brunswick Billiards

 

[iusedtoberich]

Table - 2002 | Brunswick Billiards

That doesn't say anything relevant.

It's not a build sheet either. Its a marketing summary that looks like someone wrote it in 2008, which is the last date listed on it.

A build sheet (I'm guessing) would be a checkbox style list that a customer would put a mark in whichever option they wanted, send it to their dealer (or Brunswick direct for commercial purchases), and get the table they ordered.

 

[garczar]

The piano black GCs were artistic failures also….I talked a friend out of buying a pool hall full of them at a trade show by telling him to
lay his hand on a rail….you could see enough of his finger prints to call it forensic evidence.

They look great in a showroom but not in a 'hall. The flat black was fine but the piano was just pretty to look at.

 

[boogieman]

The piano black GCs were artistic failures also….I talked a friend out of buying a pool hall full of them at a trade show by telling him to
lay his hand on a rail….you could see enough of his finger prints to call it forensic evidence.

To me, they are beautiful, I'd have one in a heartbeat but I'm certain you're correct about them getting fingerprints and dirty. It's kind of like having a black vehicle. They look great but look dirty as soon as you drive across town after the car wash.

There's an old straight pool match with Jim Rempe and Alan Hopkins and the table just looks so good. You can see their reflections in the rails while playing. For some reason the black GC just look iconic to me. I've only played on them a couple times but they just look like what a pool table should.

I used to play on an 8' coin op table of some type as a kid. It was an older table, may have been Brunswick. As a kid I didn't think to check. They weren't piano black but the shiny black rails and chrome castings just look right. This was in the back room of an old general store that had been around for a hundred years in a rural Iowa coal town of less than 300 people. It was a leftover from the coal boom and even had a mason lodge in the upper story. I've never been in the second floor but it had an enclosed staircase on the side of the building as the only access.

The building was two story, bare wood floors worn with a century of use. Antique, but still working deep chest type coca cola fridges with the built in bottle opener. They put oiled sawdust on the floor twice a year, farmers sat around and shelled free peanuts on the floor. It was a relic of a past time even then. The widowed lady running it was a mainstay of the community. Kind of like everyone's friend and grandma. She cleaned the church there too. There weren't any restaurants in the town, but she sold wax paper wrapped lunch meat sandwiches and soda for a pretty cheap price. A lot of the farmers would come in for lunch there.

I remember them selling penny candy in the 80s and 90s, mainly because she loved kids and knew they enjoyed spending money and thinking of the options of what candy to get. I didn't realize this as a kid, but it was really fun picking candy from the antique glass front display at the register. I think back then a quarter was the going rate for coin op and I think this took a dime. As ~8 year old kids we would often take a couple dollars worth of pop cans in, get 10 pieces of candy each, and spend the rest on pool for an hour or so. We had all sorts of stuff to keep us busy, baseball/basketball at the park, traipsing the woods, riding and ramping bikes, playing Nintendo and such, but we always enjoyed our time at the pool table.

 

[rexus31]

That doesn't say anything relevant.

It's not a build sheet either. Its a marketing summary that looks like someone wrote it in 2008, which is the last date listed on it.

A build sheet (I'm guessing) would be a checkbox style list that a customer would put a mark in whichever option they wanted, send it to their dealer (or Brunswick direct for commercial purchases), and get the table they ordered.

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Please show me where I said build sheet. We aren't talking about cars here. There's no such thing as a build sheet for a pool table; at least I've never seen one. Have you? Order form? Probably. One more time. Read it slowly. The link I posted is the sell sheet as it states in black and white via the link, which was penned by Brunswick and is in the Brunswick Library on the Brunswick website. Again, reading is fundamental but I'll copy and paste it here for you incase the small print is throwing you off, "Technical Information: From the 2002 Brunswick Billiards Gold Crown IV sell sheet". There is no mention of optional rail counters being available and this was the customer facing information for the Gold Crown IV in 2002. Transversely, in the sell sheet for the Gold Crown I, the optional ash trays are mentioned as seen below. Common sense would tell you if there was an added cost option available on the Gold Crown IV, it would be listed on the customer facing collateral.

Again, congrats on breaking the Gold Crown IV case WIDE open! Bravo! Now I'll have to block you because of your incessant nonsense.

 

[pt109]

To me, they are beautiful, I'd have one in a heartbeat but I'm certain you're correct about them getting fingerprints and dirty. It's kind of like having a black vehicle. They look great but look dirty as soon as you drive across town after the car wash.

There's an old straight pool match with Jim Rempe and Alan Hopkins and the table just looks so good. You can see their reflections in the rails while playing. For some reason the black GC just look iconic to me. I've only played on them a couple times but they just look like what a pool table should.

I used to play on an 8' coin op table of some type as a kid. It was an older table, may have been Brunswick. As a kid I didn't think to check. They weren't piano black but the shiny black rails and chrome castings just look right. This was in the back room of an old general store that had been around for a hundred years in a rural Iowa coal town of less than 300 people. It was a leftover from the coal boom and even had a mason lodge in the upper story. I've never been in the second floor but it had an enclosed staircase on the side of the building as the only access.

The building was two story, bare wood floors worn with a century of use. Antique, but still working deep chest type coca cola fridges with the built in bottle opener. They put oiled sawdust on the floor twice a year, farmers sat around and shelled free peanuts on the floor. It was a relic of a past time even then. The widowed lady running it was a mainstay of the community. Kind of like everyone's friend and grandma. She cleaned the church there too. There weren't any restaurants in the town, but she sold wax paper wrapped lunch meat sandwiches and soda for a pretty cheap price. A lot of the farmers would come in for lunch there.

I remember them selling penny candy in the 80s and 90s, mainly because she loved kids and knew they enjoyed spending money and thinking of the options of what candy to get. I didn't realize this as a kid, but it was really fun picking candy from the antique glass front display at the register. I think back then a quarter was the going rate for coin op and I think this took a dime. As ~8 year old kids we would often take a couple dollars worth of pop cans in, get 10 pieces of candy each, and spend the rest on pool for an hour or so. We had all sorts of stuff to keep us busy, baseball/basketball at the park, traipsing the woods, riding and ramping bikes, playing Nintendo and such, but we always enjoyed our time at the pool table.

Great post, sir
But you can still have my share of shiny black tables …and the chrome also.
My taste in tables jump from pre-Centennials to Diamond….I think billiard tables should be great furniture.

 

[garczar]

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Please show me where I said build sheet. We aren't talking about cars here. There's no such thing as a build sheet for a pool table; at least I've never seen one. Have you? Order form? Probably. One more time. Read it slowly. The link I posted is the sell sheet as it states in black and white via the link, which was penned by Brunswick and is in the Brunswick Library on the Brunswick website. Again, reading is fundamental but I'll copy and paste it here for you incase the small print is throwing you off, "Technical Information: From the 2002 Brunswick Billiards Gold Crown IV sell sheet". There is no mention of optional rail counters being available and this was the customer facing information for the Gold Crown IV in 2002. Transversely, in the sell sheet for the Gold Crown I, the optional ash trays are mentioned as seen below. Common sense would tell you if there was an added cost option available on the Gold Crown IV, it would be listed on the customer facing collateral.

Again, congrats on breaking the Gold Crown IV case WIDE open! Bravo! Now I'll have to block you because of your incessant nonsense.

View attachment 827251

The picture of the non-matching trim color should make it pretty clear these were aftermarket mods. Some just won't accept it. Must give them something to live for.

 

[Mr. Joshua]

As a GCIV owner, I like that the OP found pictures of IVs with built-in score counters and is resurrecting the possibility that there could have been an option in '98. I'm still in the RKC camp that it was aftermarket, but it's still a good find. It's sort of like seeing the IV ball box trim on a GCIII. As far as piano-black, it makes for a stunning home table. I passed on one and later found a mahogany tournament edition that had been put away around 2007 after a tournament in CT.

 

[bradsh98]

The picture of the non-matching trim color should make it pretty clear these were aftermarket mods. Some just won't accept it. Must give them something to live for.

The nickel counters match the nickel trim, on the table posted. The castings are bronze, however... Which seems odd. The rails look to be much newer than the rest of the table, which is entirely possible. They could be reproduction rails. I know that 8th-Zone was offering reproduction rails for a while.

Though, I am not of the mind that counters were definitely not an option.... It is entirely possible. Does it matter? No... But, there is so much misinformation around here, which gets spread as gospel. I've seen it.. I've fought it... I've grown tired of arguing over it... So, I see @iusedtoberich's point.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Take a look at these pictures from the Snooker's room in Rhode Island. It's on their website. It's hard to tell, but it looks like the entire room is GC4's with score counters. You can see two white areas on several of the tables that would line up with where the counters would go.

If that is indeed the case, then we are looking at 15-20 tables at Snookers, plus the few I saw with my own eyes at Amazin Billiards.

The Space | Snookers - Craft Beer, Billiards and American Sports Bar - Providence, RI

Snookers is a great place to meet friends to hang out, enjoy craft beers and great food, watch sports, play pool, darts and shuffleboard, compete in a local pool tournament and have a good time!

www.snookersri.com

 

[iusedtoberich]

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Please show me where I said build sheet. We aren't talking about cars here. There's no such thing as a build sheet for a pool table; at least I've never seen one. Have you? Order form? Probably. One more time. Read it slowly. The link I posted is the sell sheet as it states in black and white via the link, which was penned by Brunswick and is in the Brunswick Library on the Brunswick website. Again, reading is fundamental but I'll copy and paste it here for you incase the small print is throwing you off, "Technical Information: From the 2002 Brunswick Billiards Gold Crown IV sell sheet". There is no mention of optional rail counters being available and this was the customer facing information for the Gold Crown IV in 2002. Transversely, in the sell sheet for the Gold Crown I, the optional ash trays are mentioned as seen below. Common sense would tell you if there was an added cost option available on the Gold Crown IV, it would be listed on the customer facing collateral.

Again, congrats on breaking the Gold Crown IV case WIDE open! Bravo! Now I'll have to block you because of your incessant nonsense.

View attachment 827251

I'll concede I thought (from memory) you had said build sheet when I asked you to link it. You could have said when you linked it: "Here it is, but its not a build sheet, its a sell sheet".

"Order form" would probably be the same thing as a "build sheet". Basically a form that a buyer would "check the boxes" of what options he wanted. It's perfectly reasonable to assume such a form existed. There are table size options, color options, pocket opening sizes (on the later tournament edition), cloth color options, ball return vs drop pocket, maybe a couple more I'm forgetting now. A sheet with check boxes would sure simplify the ordering process, agree? Older tables like a GC1 would have had even more options. More color choices. A 10' version. Ashtrays. Carom and Snooker. Etc.

Regardless of those semantics, my statement that this sell sheet "doesn't say anything relevant". stands. I don't have a reading comprehension problem. I actually read through the sell sheet a couple times carefully before making my comment.

First of all, the "Library Record" page this is on was made (or updated) sometime after 2008. Because it says the date 2008 on it.

Next, the "summary" section says its from the 2002 sell sheet. We don't know if that is the entire sell sheet simply cut and pasted into this section. Or, if its a "summary" of the sell sheet, and there are portions missing. It could very well be the whole thing, IDK. But if looking at this on its own merit, I don't think it's possible to know that as fact. I do think now, however, since you posted the GC1 sell sheet, it probably is the whole thing cut and pasted. And since it is a "sell sheet" and not a "build sheet", it is reasonable that it would not have every single option. It's marketing material for consumers and pool hall owners, not ordering material. When you go to a car dealer and get a brochure, it gives a general marketing overview of the car and basic options. It won't list every single option possible and the price for every single option. (at least most won't anyway).

Next, let's assume it is the entire sell sheet, and that is ALL the information a dealer would have provided a buyer. And anything not listed on it was not an option, such as the score counter. Well, the specifications are from 2001.

But the table was in production since 1997. This sell sheet gives us zero information what the specifications were in the earlier years of the GC4 production.