I hear my cue should be shipping within a week or two. I am not a massive collector of cues. I have had the chance to shoot for a while with a Southwest, A few times with a vintage Tim Scruggs, own an 80's Meucci Dragon Slayer, a 2000 Shurtz, and a 1994 Bill Schick...wich is my fave of course. I have shot with a lot of others just for fun. I'm not a pro, but I do have a love of craftsmanship and have built a few odds and ends in my time. As such, I can say you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a lot of cue. I think the expensive cues can help maintain a consistency of quality across a line/builder. Whereas the cheaper cues are hit or miss.
All this being said, I am very anxious to try out this cue from Prulhiere cues. Firstly, for 170.00 it's hard to get anything too wonderful. Generally an "adequate" production line cue is considered a good find. But I can say that this maker has stayed in touch with me throughout the process so far. I got to pick colors, wrap, weight, etc. ...From a business standpoint I already got 100.00 worth of customer service from this maker.
I have no doubt he is doing his best to produce a far more than adequate cue for the money. I sincerely hope I can post an unbiased raving review. At 170.00 the success of this maker will depend soley on word of mouth and reviews...as is probably the case with any relative greenhorn to the trade.
So I'll be sure to post my honest review, for what little it may be worth, when I get mine and have a chance to shoot some racks with it. I hope it's a good one.
And at 170.00 for a custom made cue, it's simply hard to pass it up. Even just to see what you get.