All I am saying is that you indeed made copies and profited from them. The reason is irrelevant. [...]
Not irrelevant at all, Joe. There is a VAST difference between a cuemaker giving his permission to another cuemaker, and one who simple steals a design
without permission. You only
say its irrelevant becasue otherwise you have nothing to "point a finger" at [regarding me and SW's).
Hey we could talk about making one of a kind cues and putting them onto a collector as such, then ripping out a few more because that collector wouldn't sell to a more prominent collector, if we are going to say that CDST is an integrity issue there are many ways to judge integrity. But lets stay on topic for now...
No, let's not. You are undoubtedly hinting around about my "Disintegrating Cue" (featured in the first two editions of the
Billiard Encyclopedia), which I built and then displayed in the very first ACA booth, at the 1992 Kansas City BCA trade show. It was subsequently purchased by your pal/partner Mark Kulungian. I designed and built that cue without any input or discussion with Kulungian; in fact, I didn't even know he existed at the time. I never made any claim the cue was "one-of-a-kind", and I never gave him any exclusive "rights" to the design.
Many years later I was approached by a collector who asked about the history of the cue, and then told me that Kulungian still had the cue and that the collector wanted to buy it. The problem was Kulungian refused to take less than $30,000 for the cue, and had told this collector (and others, presumably) that it was a "one-of-a-kind" design he had "commissioned" from me, and that I had promised I would never build again. These were all bald-faced lies by Kulungian, no doubt as part of his attempt to turn his original $1900 into $30,000 with just a few strokes of his tongue.
Now, I have no problem with a dealer/broker making a profit from my work. In fact, whenever I get a call from a would-be customer asking about a cue I know is currently in the hands of one of my brokers I am very careful about what information I will disclose. If the caller wants to know what he can buy the cue for, I take his phone number and tell him I will get back to him. THEN I call the broker and find out his listed price so I can give the customer a similar number. I protect my brokers, as would any intelligent maker - only a fool undercuts his own dealer... and then hopes to keep doing business with that broker's.
But that didn't happen here. Kulungian simply made up a false story to tell his customer(s) in order to hopefully make a big score. He made these claims without my knowledge and without my permission. So I made it clear to the interested collector that Kulungian's claims were 100% bullshit, and then I agreed to build a similar cue (with some significant differences however) for $3000. I did, however, make the second cue intentionally different so that it could never be mistaken for the original pictured in the Encyclopedia.
Later, Kulungian called me and left a message about being very pissed off that the cue "he had designed and commissioned as one-of-a-kind" had been repeated by me "without his permission". I called him right back and set him straight, and he
immediately backed down. He knew the truth, and I can only guess he had told the lie so much that he'd come to half believe it himself. Doesn't matter to me. It was (and IS) my original design, and if I want to repeat it
1000 times I will - though it's not likely I will ever build it again.
So how'd I do, Joe? Did I guess correctly about which phony story you were trying to subtly threaten me with? Of course, the one thing I
can't know is if you already know the true story, or if Kulungian duped you in too. But if you get a chance to ask him about it, you might also ask him about showing up at the NY Athletic Club, broke and apparently drunk off his ass, asking for me. And how the desk clerk called our room, woke my wife and me up, and asked If I knew this guy. And how I told them I would pay for a room fro him so they didn't throw him back out on the street. There's more to the story, but maybe I'll let him tell you his version first.
Funny you skipped the part about all your pals and why you don't call them out. Do you want me to post pics to show you examples?
JV
Post pictures, don't post pictures... who cares? I am not responsible for decisions made by other cuemakers to copy/imitate or not. Nor do I feel inclined to "defend" them if they did. Virtually all the cuemakers you mentioned were building cues well before I began. More importantly, the very concept of "Cue Design Theft" had never even been considered back then. So it stands to reason that in a less enlightened age there probably was a good amount of "incest" among cuemakers and the designs they built.
But, like all social practices, times have changed. As designs evolved and became more distinct and less traditional it collectively dawned on cuemakers that when someone creates a truly unique design it should remain sacrosanct among his fellow makers, and NOT be copied or imitated. I'm not sure why
you are so against that idea, but it's clear that the vast majority of ACA and ICA members, GACA and ICCS exhibitors, and right-thinking collectors choose to respect the original designs and look down upon the copies and knock-off artists.
TW
.
