Without going bat-shit crazy with multiple posts that basically all say about the same thing, I would like to relate this story (and I understand that this is probably the exception rather than the rule).
About 40 years ago I bought a really cheap cue (from K-mart no less). The 1x1 soft case I carried it in was even cheaper. I was a banger in every sense of the word. Went into a pool hall maybe three times a year (in a good year). Any, at some point in time the tip fell off and the cheapo faux inlays began falling off.
Being as how I wasn't really a "pool player" and had a wife and two children to raise, I broke the cue down and stuck it in a far and cluttered corner of my garage, sans case as it was deteriorated and useless to begin with. Now, I live in Texas so my garage can reach temperatures of 140+ degrees in the dog days of summer and down to 20 degrees (some years less) during a cold spell in the winter.
Fast forward 40 years. I'm digging around in that corner of my garage for something one day and run across that old cue sitting broke down and upright. I wipe the dust and cobwebs off of it and screw it together....dead straight.
40 years abused....no case....still playable if I'd wanted to have used it. Shaft would have needed some cleaning/maintenance, but the cue was dead nutz straight.
No one will ever convince me that a cue being stored, in a case, upright, in a controlled-temperature environment, in the back of a closet or otherwise out of the way of foot traffic, would not be fine in a case such as an Acme/Omega.
Marketing a product makes people say stupid stuff.
Done here, because I know what's coming next (wink, wink).
Maniac
