Well, it would be nice if you would contribute to the Rich Cue History thread.
In the meantime:
Help identifying vintage 57” piloted brass-joint cue
- Thread starter 11Cues
- Start date
In the meantime:
I have a Rich cue. I'm a great player.
Did you mean a big schmuck with a little putz?Really?
I thought you were a rich player with a great cue?
look in reality he and his company names, made lots of cues. i am only familiar with the early new york ones. they were not very good at all in my opinion and no good players used them. you couldn't virtually give one away.
but they are around and have some following. i dont know why but we each decide what we want. collectors buy and sell them as they are old cues from old makers.
some early players bought them as they were available and cheaper than palmer cues and paradice. and easier to get.
for me playing, i would always take a two piece house cue conversion over one.
but they are around and have some following. i dont know why but we each decide what we want. collectors buy and sell them as they are old cues from old makers.
some early players bought them as they were available and cheaper than palmer cues and paradice. and easier to get.
for me playing, i would always take a two piece house cue conversion over one.
Someone hold my beer.
And there it is. You just admitted the entire flaw in your position: 'i am only familiar with the early new york ones.'
Dismissing an entire multi-generational lineage 'en bloc' when you have zero familiarity with Abe Rich's handcrafted, decades-seasoned Miami Star and Florida cues is exactly the kind of collector blind spot I often talk about. You are judging a master craftsman's lifelong custom work based entirely on a completely different factory line.
Furthermore, the irony of saying you would prefer a 'two-piece house cue conversion' is incredible. The Rich family was famous for turning out the exact high-quality blanks and house cues that the top cue makers of the era (and modern cuemakers doing conversions) coveted for their stability. No one is claiming early Rich production cues were luxury status symbols like a Paradise or a Palmer. They were affordable, working-class tools. But legendary road players and straight pool shooters absolutely used them because they offered a stiff, dead-solid hit. There is a massive difference between a cue being a 'status symbol' and a cue being a 'garbage tool.'
True historical collecting requires understanding the difference. The most famous entertainment figure in pool history, Wanderone was known to frequent Abe Rich's small Miami Beach shop and acquired multiple cues from him. Jackie Gleason was also a customer. While Mosconi is famously tied to Balabushka and Rambow cues, historical accounts from New York pool halls indicate he and other straight pool straight-shooters occasionally used Saul Rich's custom New York builds during the 1960s. While Saul’s mass-production "Rich Q" cues were widely distributed commercial products, Abe's "Star Cues" became a legendary, word-of-mouth pilgrimage site for traveling professional road players and hustlers passing through South Florida. Players prized his "Merry Widow" designs for their distinct, solid hit.
Before and alongside the mass-production boom, both Saul and Abe built high-quality, professional-grade instruments. Saul's early custom New York wood went straight into legendary pool rooms. Abe’s Miami-built cues were meticulously handcrafted, perfectly balanced, and highly sought after by local champions.
If you want to talk about reality, let’s look at the actual manufacturing history. Saying you’d rather have a house cue conversion over 'any' later Rich cue completely ignores the fact that a significant portion of the later Rich lines were contract-manufactured by Adam. Are we really going to sit here on a cue forum and claim that Richard Helmstetter’s Japanese Adam factory wood is 'garbage'? The Adam-made Rich lines featured excellent full splices, fantastic feedback, and the exact same premium Japanese manufacturing quality that people praise in vintage Palmers and Helmstetters from that era. This is exactly why judging an entire lineage 'en bloc' based strictly on early New York factory impressions fails. You’re dismissing handcrafted Abe Rich custom Miami builds on one end, and high-quality Japanese Adam production on the other. There is a massive world of difference between a name on a label and how a specific era of cue was actually built.
From Saul’s factory innovations and trade supply lines to Abe’s hand-lathed custom masterpieces in Miami and the later high-quality Adam contract builds, these cues are physical time capsules. True collecting is rooted in historical literacy. It requires a deep, granular understanding of the trade to appreciate the difference between a luxury status symbol and a working-man's legacy. That isn't ignorance of the game, it is preserving the history of the game.
To say a cue line is junk simply because it was mass-produced is a massive double standard. The Brunswick Titlist was mass-produced. So was the Dufferin and the Valley, the exact factory house cues that so many players loved to convert and still cherish today. If we dismiss wood en bloc based strictly on factory labels, then we’d have to write off half of the greatest playing cues in history. True historical collecting requires understanding the difference between a high-dollar safe queen and a working-man's legacy. Preserving that history isn't ignorance; it's the entire point of the hobby, even though some focus only on certain customs or high dollar cues. There have been Rich cues on Mark Kulungian and Joe Van Buren's website. Maybe a letter of complaint to them would get somewhere. Abe Rich is in the ACA Hall of Fame. Rich cues are in the Blue Book.