my 250 year old cue :D
- Thread starter Solartje
- Start date
matta said:
if you click on the pictures the bigger picture should apear. I can't get the closups more closer, or the lense will be blury.
Billiardshot: thanks again for the new link. Actually, the seller knows ALOT about these cue's, has restores them and really seems to be quit an expert in marquetry cue's. I've checked how far he lives and its only a 2.5h drive. i think ill just stop buy at his house and see what i can get for my bankroll.
i'll probably have to give the lady a year free nagging coupon for spending all the money, but hey its mine money, its a good investment, and well i'm an vintage cue addict now.
its just like hard drugs, 1 cue!! and you are adicted! never thought it would go so fast, but its probably the healthiest adiction there is 
cdmexposer
Banned
marquetry cue construction
Your cue has been beautifully restored and looks nice.... but there is a problem. There is a good reason that the marquetry panel is facing sideways relative to the nameplate. It is the same reason that nobody else bid on it. This cue has been fixed all wrong. As you can see, there is an absence of the usual veneers or "stitching" between the marquetry panels. See how the only veneer between them is wavy? Do you really believe that someone capable of making marquetry this fine would make this mistake? Do you further believe that someone making such a display piece would make the panels sideways relative to the nameplates? This cue appears to have been a damaged cue spliced to a salvaged cue. You might want to start asking yourself some serious questions. This is only my opinion. You might look to see if the waves on one panel junction match up to the waves on the other side. This would tell you that someone used a band saw to cut apart a damaged cue and glue them up to a diameter that matches a spliced shaft. As a cuemaker I notice these things. These are not inlays, they are puzzle-pictures wrapped onto cues. The original maker would have put 3-5 veneers or other fancy border between the panels. I do not have any of these cues but I used to have one and I sold it for a huge amount of money, and I would not have been paid If I had presented the buyer with this thing. Look in the billiard encyclopedia or Stellinga's book and you will see where you went wrong my son.
Your cue has been beautifully restored and looks nice.... but there is a problem. There is a good reason that the marquetry panel is facing sideways relative to the nameplate. It is the same reason that nobody else bid on it. This cue has been fixed all wrong. As you can see, there is an absence of the usual veneers or "stitching" between the marquetry panels. See how the only veneer between them is wavy? Do you really believe that someone capable of making marquetry this fine would make this mistake? Do you further believe that someone making such a display piece would make the panels sideways relative to the nameplates? This cue appears to have been a damaged cue spliced to a salvaged cue. You might want to start asking yourself some serious questions. This is only my opinion. You might look to see if the waves on one panel junction match up to the waves on the other side. This would tell you that someone used a band saw to cut apart a damaged cue and glue them up to a diameter that matches a spliced shaft. As a cuemaker I notice these things. These are not inlays, they are puzzle-pictures wrapped onto cues. The original maker would have put 3-5 veneers or other fancy border between the panels. I do not have any of these cues but I used to have one and I sold it for a huge amount of money, and I would not have been paid If I had presented the buyer with this thing. Look in the billiard encyclopedia or Stellinga's book and you will see where you went wrong my son.
cdmexposer said:
the waves dont match up on either side. Its true that most marquetry cues ive seen have the marquetry facings in the same side as the points, but if originally the points where placed in between the panels you should see where the original points where, and see the replacing wood. and the woodgrain lign up perfectly, on the botom of the facings,so im pritty sure the facings on this cue where placed sideways originally. the cues with the reverse points on the facingide where the cues who also have the butterfly + normal points on the top, this one doesnt has the butterfly's and is one of the oldest marquetry cue's. i think the marquetry cues with the reverse points in the facing + butterfly's where models made later.
You are right on the wavy intersections though. they do look wavy and could indicate that these where restaured. I noticed it in the beginning but didnt pay more attention to it. for the rest the cues is really well restaured.
i still dont think i went wrong with this buy. even in restored state they are still so rare to find that they are worth alot more then i ever payed for them.cdmexposer said:you will see where you went wrong my son.
thanks alot for the information, even with 1 post you do know your thing. Feel free to send me an email. just pm me and i'll give it to you, as im always interested in learning things i didnt know yet.
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cdmexposer
Banned
points that are not about points
One scary thing I forgot to mention about this cue on my last note is that I actually saw this cue on ebay because there was a particular Hiolle model I have been looking for. In searching for it I previously saw a group of these reworked marquetry cues being sold as one lot and one of them had the identical marquetry design with this woman but the cue had been spliced with four crookedly spliced points ( the other cues in the group were also done this way.) I guess he got better at splicing cues together. So the marquetry itself may be just a pattern this guy is making. These type cues are not done like puzzles. A craftsman simply takes whatever number of veneers it takes to make the whole panel and sandwiches them together and only glues them at the outer periphery so they stay together but the inner pieces can fall away. The design is then drawn onto the top veneer. Then a fine band saw cuts out the pattern at once. That is why this is not even an older marquetry because the space between the pieces got smaller as the technology for thinner band saw blades advanced. The early ones, say before 1850, have a black material filling in the spaces between the pieces and this is thicker the older it is. The one I sold had at least 1mm between pieces. Yours has tolerances too close to be older than that. See, the band saw has to be strong enough to stay in a loop and not break and flail the maker. So they had to be thicker early on. The earliest ones had variances in spaces between pieces because they were cut truly by hand with hand-saws. Go to any antique store specializing in marquetry furniture and they will tell you the same thing. The early ones were much longer as well because the tables were bigger in palaces. The earliest ones employed other techniques as well like paint applied into cutouts, and metal inlay work. This is all well known to the French. So no, this cannot be an early one, thus the Mingaud comment by the other guy was right on. Actually, in my prior message I was not talking about the points lining up, I was talking about the nameplates. A skilled craftsman would not have done it this way. For one reason that is apart from aesthetics, a maker would have been crazy to risk ruining all this workmanship and then-rare exotic wood by splicing a nameplate point into a 1-mm veneer and trying to make that line up. That is why you see a wider sandwich of veneers on the original ones... bigger target. Go see any marquetry cue in any collection and few of the nameplate points line up with the center of the marquetry because it was just too difficult to get it perfect on a rounded object like a cue. ANY OTHER CUEMAKERS OUT THERE WILLING TO COMMENT AND BACK ME ON THESE POINTS?These cues were not round on the bottom, they are wider on the sides to display the marquetry on a wider space AND TO MAKE THE MACE END PLAYABLE. Since the nameplate/buttplate arrangement is made to be used as a mace by the ladies or short kings ( the leather bumps the ball, the bone slides on the cloth), a craftsman would not have made a top-heavy, unstably sliding mace. This thing is just not right and I am afraid the history of how these were made will suffer if this effed up thing is thought to be original. Don't kill the messenger, but you have been had friend. If you had ten or fifteen thousand in your pocket he would have shown you the real ones. Stay well and smart, fellow billiard lover
One scary thing I forgot to mention about this cue on my last note is that I actually saw this cue on ebay because there was a particular Hiolle model I have been looking for. In searching for it I previously saw a group of these reworked marquetry cues being sold as one lot and one of them had the identical marquetry design with this woman but the cue had been spliced with four crookedly spliced points ( the other cues in the group were also done this way.) I guess he got better at splicing cues together. So the marquetry itself may be just a pattern this guy is making. These type cues are not done like puzzles. A craftsman simply takes whatever number of veneers it takes to make the whole panel and sandwiches them together and only glues them at the outer periphery so they stay together but the inner pieces can fall away. The design is then drawn onto the top veneer. Then a fine band saw cuts out the pattern at once. That is why this is not even an older marquetry because the space between the pieces got smaller as the technology for thinner band saw blades advanced. The early ones, say before 1850, have a black material filling in the spaces between the pieces and this is thicker the older it is. The one I sold had at least 1mm between pieces. Yours has tolerances too close to be older than that. See, the band saw has to be strong enough to stay in a loop and not break and flail the maker. So they had to be thicker early on. The earliest ones had variances in spaces between pieces because they were cut truly by hand with hand-saws. Go to any antique store specializing in marquetry furniture and they will tell you the same thing. The early ones were much longer as well because the tables were bigger in palaces. The earliest ones employed other techniques as well like paint applied into cutouts, and metal inlay work. This is all well known to the French. So no, this cannot be an early one, thus the Mingaud comment by the other guy was right on. Actually, in my prior message I was not talking about the points lining up, I was talking about the nameplates. A skilled craftsman would not have done it this way. For one reason that is apart from aesthetics, a maker would have been crazy to risk ruining all this workmanship and then-rare exotic wood by splicing a nameplate point into a 1-mm veneer and trying to make that line up. That is why you see a wider sandwich of veneers on the original ones... bigger target. Go see any marquetry cue in any collection and few of the nameplate points line up with the center of the marquetry because it was just too difficult to get it perfect on a rounded object like a cue. ANY OTHER CUEMAKERS OUT THERE WILLING TO COMMENT AND BACK ME ON THESE POINTS?These cues were not round on the bottom, they are wider on the sides to display the marquetry on a wider space AND TO MAKE THE MACE END PLAYABLE. Since the nameplate/buttplate arrangement is made to be used as a mace by the ladies or short kings ( the leather bumps the ball, the bone slides on the cloth), a craftsman would not have made a top-heavy, unstably sliding mace. This thing is just not right and I am afraid the history of how these were made will suffer if this effed up thing is thought to be original. Don't kill the messenger, but you have been had friend. If you had ten or fifteen thousand in your pocket he would have shown you the real ones. Stay well and smart, fellow billiard lover
cdmexposer
Banned
cue
sorry kid. no offense.
sorry kid. no offense.
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hehe i'm really not the guy. ive posted over 1500 post here, if 20 posts of them are about these cues, maybe thats just because ive always been interested in collecting cue's and living in europe its easyer to collect european cue's. Someone gave me the blue book as agift last xmas. if i was the guy restoring or counterfaking these cue's, i porbably would have a whole shop to remake cue's and a whole library of books and encyclopedia's, and i live in a apartment in the middle of brussels. and dont own any book, . ps... i live in belgium and the guy lives in france. If you check the auction, my ebay name is solartje, wich is not the ebay name of the guy selling the cue. you seem pritty new here, but u can ask anyone around here im not the guy selling them. I really want to set this straight as i dont like my name being related to something bad.
about the cue info, i'll have to read it several times to understand what you told me. anyway im not banging you down, like i said, i'm GLAD someone has enough knowledge about these cue's to instruct me. im not the guy selling these cue's, i'm the buyer. im the guy working 9-5's every day, and spending my money on antiques that look nice. so if you are right, then i can only give you credits for letting me know about what to look at etc.
thanks again for the comments!
ps knowing all what you said, is paying 1000€ still overpaying these reconstructed cue's? i thought even restaured they would be worth 3k $.
ps2: do you mean that the marquetry has been made much later and just installed when this guy was restoring them? im trying to understand what you said, but its hard as im not native english speaking.
reps for the messenger.
im not the guy selling them. I really want to set this straight as i dont like my name being related to something bad. about the cue info, i'll have to read it several times to understand what you told me. anyway im not banging you down, like i said, i'm GLAD someone has enough knowledge about these cue's to instruct me. im not the guy selling these cue's, i'm the buyer. im the guy working 9-5's every day, and spending my money on antiques that look nice. so if you are right, then i can only give you credits for letting me know about what to look at etc.
thanks again for the comments!
ps knowing all what you said, is paying 1000€ still overpaying these reconstructed cue's? i thought even restaured they would be worth 3k $.
ps2: do you mean that the marquetry has been made much later and just installed when this guy was restoring them? im trying to understand what you said, but its hard as im not native english speaking.
reps for the messenger.
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Another Ebay auction???
Hi,
So I am curious is this the same cue for sale ?
http://cgi.ebay.fr/Queue-ancienne-d...ryZ92103QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Or is this the same seller where you got that one from ?
Just interested.
Din
Hi,
So I am curious is this the same cue for sale ?
http://cgi.ebay.fr/Queue-ancienne-d...ryZ92103QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Or is this the same seller where you got that one from ?
Just interested.
Din
same seller.
he seems to sell one every 2 months. (this is the 3th one so far)
i was going to make an offer, but after what has been posted, i think i'll keep my money untill i got to the bottem of it ! :s
ps check the location:
Lieu o? se trouve l'objet : Witry les Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France m?tropolitaine ...
i live in belgium , so im NOT him. it would be cool if you could edit your ps before it hurts any of my reputation.
he seems to sell one every 2 months. (this is the 3th one so far)
i was going to make an offer, but after what has been posted, i think i'll keep my money untill i got to the bottem of it ! :s
ps check the location:
Lieu o? se trouve l'objet : Witry les Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France m?tropolitaine ...
i live in belgium , so im NOT him. it would be cool if you could edit your ps before it hurts any of my reputation.
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cdmexposer
Banned
restauration
Restored means brought back to original condition, or as close to original as possible. Splicing pieces of cues to make one is not restoration. I believe the jointed cue just on ebay is not worth what it sold for to most collectors, and apparently only two collectors thought so. That would be the winner and runner up bidder. But since the new joint was obvious, no harm no foul I suppose. Merry Christmas.
Restored means brought back to original condition, or as close to original as possible. Splicing pieces of cues to make one is not restoration. I believe the jointed cue just on ebay is not worth what it sold for to most collectors, and apparently only two collectors thought so. That would be the winner and runner up bidder. But since the new joint was obvious, no harm no foul I suppose. Merry Christmas.