Thank you, I have studied under a few masters in my life. A potter, a wood worker and a few martial artists. None of them started a shop or studio without being directly involved for at least a decade or more. The cue I have had to have been made in the first five years of the Japan start up thus I would have thought the master would have been hands on at that time. Guess the cue making craft is very different from the ones I am familiar with. Never heard of a worth while master who would start a company and bail out in the first couple years and let the journeyman make everything. Sad really. I like the cue, guess I'll play with it and leave it to someone who cares.
I think you are confusing a cue made by a factory with a good custom cue.
The cuemaking craft is no different than any other functional art.
Don't discredit the art of cuemaking because you have an import that isn't worth as much as you think it should be worth.
I recently sold a plain jane Kersenbrock made in the same era for 5K, and the cue has no inlays, no rings, no exotic woods.
There are true masters out there building cues, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.