I have a Gen-1 X-breaker purple hart and mahogany, with the gen-1xbreaker tip-its pretty cool at first,the only way to describe it is to say that it almost looks like miniature steps or ledges -like its milled that way but after years of abuse the tip lost those steps and became smooth,thats why i think the cue was "hot" in the industry but when those steps wore off and the gen2 was made and then they quit making them.
Bit needless to say it wasnt that much more money than the X-breaker was. Now if I were to have put ivory inlays in it or any ivory joint on the cue with a leather wrap then the cue would be about the same price as my player cue. Iam pretty good buddies with Andy and was sitting in his booth Robb Saez at AHSBE 2010,I had just got my playing cue and was showing Robb and I just had an idea, I grabbed Andy note pad/custom order sheet and basically built my cue W/O the inlay work and a hard white material for the joint. I asked himhow much he though it would run me, he threw out a number and I went ti pay him and he told me to pay him when it was done. I am sworn to never reveal the amount with anyone buy all I can say is Andy and Vicki have always been great to deal with. I got the cue in about4and a half months from when I placed the order,I dont think it could have been done any faster. So for me it was just a little bit money money than my xbreaker was,i mean a little,very little more money for the Gilbert. Pretty easy choice for me,but I am just lucky, iam alot luckier on stuff like this than on the table thats for sure. I was actually just talking to Andy today about a thread I read about a kid taking a ebony F/S titlest one piece cue to Jacoby to have converted and the conscesence view was although jacoby is great at what he does maybe its a cue like that should be done by the best of the best. I would consider Andy qualified enough to do a project like that. I was thinking if I could get my uncle to sell me a couple of old ebony titlests I would like to see one wrapless hoppe ring w/east dice and or suits alternating black -and - red, where the veneers come down to the points in the splice have an ivory ring about one inch under the points so you can see tge full splice.you could also put big ivory spears on top of the points and alternating ones down below on the bottom of the points. The other cue would have hoppe ring, maybe one notched diamond in the butt sleave opposite of the sticker and a small ring next to the wrap that would be silver,ivory,silver then a smooth leather wrap another silver-ivory-silver ring about about one inch before the points start wohld be ideal so you can see the full/splice,maybe semi large spear points trimmed in silver on top of the points -nothing inside the points. Just a few ideas I guess. Well I guess Ineed to try to buy one or two of them off him and try to get something worked out. After seeing an ebony titlest conversion that Bill Shick did with GIANT ivory spearpoints everyway everywhere it proly had 16ofto them but it looked amazing-it wasnt overkill-I mean it had alot of ivory in a ebony TITLEST conversion but done by the right person that thing could be one of the highest end titlest conversions ever made.ever.period. why? Because BILL FREAKIN SHICK DID IT!!!!and its worth top dollar and always will be worth what you gave for it,but more than likely will be worth many times more than when it was made,if done by a top tier master cue maker. Just my random thoughts for the evening.
