Not so, the wood may not be aged as well today, especially shaft wood. As has been mentioned already, it's getting harder to find real good wood. Cues today may be different but not necessarily better. Some may be, but not all, by any means.
The older Joss and Schons were made by hand and are not today. There is a difference between mass produced and hand built, no matter that some people think differently. I've played with both and don't like either of mass produced ones.
I'm in the woods often, harvesting trees. Specifically, I harvest sugar maples for the sole purpose of shaft wood. I can tell you without a doubt that the wood now isn't any different than wood of yesteryear. The difference is the way it's harvested & processed. The best trees aren't commercially cut for lumber, which means the wood doesn't get filtered into the cue world. Younger trees are targeted for white, defect free wood. That's why I cut my own. I don't have to worry about where my shafts come from because I cut the tree.
As for aging, that's simply untrue. If the wood is dried PROPERLY then it'll be as good right out of the gate as it ever will be. The problem is that wood gets used that isn't sufficiently dried. The wetter it is, the more elastic & plastic it is. Over time it slowly dries to completion & gets harder and stiffer as it happens. This is the phenomena that folks recognize as "seasoning" or "aging". Fact is it's just drying.
The lumber industry standard for drying wood is 6%. 6% moisture is the commonly accepted point at which furniture & cabinets can be made of wood without worry of it rapidly shrinking & pulling apart at glue seams. But it's still not truly dry and will indeed shrink over time. The shrinkage will be minimal & slow but it will happen. It just won't happen enough to cause the furniture, floors, & cabinets to come apart. For some reason, this 6% standard has become the standard in cues as well. And IMO, it's inappropriate. It's not good enough. It's needs to be 4% or lower before it's ever touched by a cue maker. Otherwise, the cue is too soft, too elastic, too tonally dampened. And it will get better with age.....eventually. But it could be better if it's dried properly right out of the gate.
I have done a LOT of research, consulting, and learning in this subject the last few years. It's something I have great interest in & want to get right. My findings have been polar opposite of the commonly held myths & beliefs in cue making. There's much more to it, including cut cycles & so on. But for "aging", it's BS. It's not the aging that changes the wood. It's the drying over time. And the wood isn't different or worse now than before, just that the wood of yesteryear isn't commercially available like it used to be. Used to be maple was considered a blonde, light brown wood. Now it's considered a white wood. Reason being is industry demands. The trend has moved to liking white wood & the colorful stuff is rejected as pallet wood. Unfortunately the cue industry pales in comparison to the general lumber industry so we have no control or pull to get what we really want. We get what's available. What's available is intended for a completely different industry than cues. Therefore, I said screw it & I do it all myself. Costs a lot more but I get what I want & know it's exactly what is right for my cues.
I log, mill, & dry the lumber myself. I'd gladly buy it instead if somebody offered it at honest rates, but nobody does. Any cue maker would gladly pay for it but it's virtually unavailable. I'm young, strong, & lucky to have ties to the timber industry. I am in the position & am able to do the lumberjack work. Most builders are not. So before I get too old, i'm loading up a lifetime's worth of wood right now. Saws, logging equipment, sawmills, kiln, etc. isn't tooling you expect to see at a cue maker's shop. But for me it's critical. And i'll likely share with others once I have my own stock pile. I may even get in to that business if the mood strikes. Probably not. I enjoy it too much.
Anyway, my point is that there's science to the myth of older cues playing better. And I have been a few years studying that science. It's not the commonly believed reasons. It's much simpler & logical than that. But with that knowledge came the realization that in order to get out of that rut, something drastic has to be done. Cue making doesn't have enough demand in the lumber industry to change how wood is processed from the loggers to the board. So if you want something done a certain way, do it yourself. It sucks cue makers don't have access to the maple we need. It used to be common. But it's still maple & if cue makers want things to be like they were, then they will have to take on some of the responsibility themselves instead just complaining about it.
Sorry for the long post. I just see this topic come up from time to time & finally am at a point where I understand the phenomena. Thought i'd share my thoughts. Still got lots to learn.
