Mysterious RICH cues

TATE said:
If I had to guess, it would be KPS Taiwan (Ernie Chen's company) , the forerunner of Falcon cues. In the 1980's, KPS was providing a lot of the outsourced lines as well as parts - it is very difficult to distinguish them from Adam cues.
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Sounds right to me.

Dale
 
pdcue said:
Sounds right to me.

Dale
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It does sound right.

The other major manufacturer was Nelson Tsai who owns Kao Kao and went on to partner in Fury cues. They also supplied numerous brands. But their production standards were not up to this level until later, maybe late eighties or early nineties.


The Imperial cues from the mid seventies onward looked like traditional Rich cues and AFAIK were US produced in the old Rich shop in New York. They were branded and distributed as Imperial cues.

These apparently last Rich cues we are talking about here were seemingly imports. But where is the Imperial name? Not on the cues. I can't read the catalog well enough to see if the name appears there.


I am just wondering if there was some other business other than Imperial involved in this last run, and if so, who or what?

Here is an example of the Imperial line of Rich cues, I believe this was the first Imperial Rich line:
s-l1600.jpg


s-l1600.jpg





Why do I care at all? Just my passion for the history.



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Chopdoc said:
Does anybody have any history on cues with this logo?

http://www.proficientbilliards.com/cues/rich/traditional/index.htm

I have searched the forum as well as spoken to a knowledgeable member here and these cues seem to be a mystery.

When were they made? Where? Import or US?

Were they associated with the Rich family of cues we all know or was it some other maker or distributor?

Imperial? Other?

Does anybody have a catalog or brochure of these cues?

I recently acquired one but don't have decent pics yet so I linked to one that has the same logo.

Any information or productive discussion on the matter would be appreciated. :smile::smile::smile:

I am under no illusion they are particularly valuable.






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Don't hold me to this but here is my opinion. The original Rich Q company sold to a gentleman whose name I can't remember, (maybe Alvin or Allen) but did talk to on the phone once. He kept the company going for a while then sold the Rich company to another company that went to Taiwan making the cues under the Rich name. My opinion is that -RICH- logo was from the time that he owned the company before Imperial took it over.
 
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cueman said:
Don't hold me to this but here is my opinion. The original Rich Q company sold to a gentleman whose name I can't remember, but did talk to on the phone once. He kept the company going for a while then sold the Rich company to another company that went to Taiwan making the cues under the Rich name. My opinion is that -RICH- logo was from the time that he kept making them here in the USA.
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You posted information about that in the past, with much more detail, including the name. I was hoping you would respond here.

I found your old posts on the matter when I was searching AZB on this, so I have already read all that.

I am still not 100% sold on the idea these are imports, but they certainly could be. They do seem to be early 80's cues from most of what people say.

Tate seems to remember the brochure said "Made in Taiwan", but we can't see that in the pics. He also says the Brochure is from about 1983. Imperial closed Rich cue production in 1982. So the time frame is about right for these to be a "last run".



We do seem to be getting further with this than in the past though. At least according to all the posts I read.



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Chopdoc said:
Holy crap!


Mine is the seventh from the right!


Thanks!

Wish it were more readable. I can't quite make out the model...nor most of the other text.


So...did these have anything to do with the old Rich cues? I get the impression they did not. I don't see "Imperial" anywhere on there and Imperial owned them in the end.


I am hoping we can come up with a nice scan of that. I would love to be able to read it.





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The best I was able to get from the picture was. Model 20 224 model name: Yankee
7th cue from right to left.

John
 
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