Professor Cue said:
Hello Milton,
I don't generally follow the AZ site as I work in the business all day long, and like to spend evenings with my family, but I recently signed up as I have heard about it for a long time. I feel I must reply to your last post as several people have mentioned your erronious remarks as concerns Paul Rubino and myself over the years. I hope you don't mind me addressing you by name, as you seem to have no trouble using ours publicly. Paul and I first interviewed Craig for the Billiard Encyclopedia in 1988 and were quite familier with him through Burton Spain and Richard Helmstetter, who made the introduction and who we interviewed two years before, when we first started putting the encyclopedia together. I knew about Craig long before I met you. May I ask when you first spoke or met with Craig?
Your remark about people, especially cue makers not knowing about him is also incorrect, and does him a great injustice. In fact it's what really made me respond to your post. He was very well known in high-end cue maker circles (very few at that time) and his cues were already fetching higher prices as well as ever gaining in popularity by the time of his death.
You seem to have time for thousands of posts on every subject about cues known to man. May I also ask what qualifies you to answer all these questions with such authority. Are you a cue maker? Do you know a lot of cue makers? How many shops have you visited?. Are you in the business?Outside of the 10 Peterson's how many other cues do you have.
Paul and I have written two Billiard Encyclopedia's and are writing a third, almost completed, and which will go to press in October of this year. All of our interviews in the past or present were recorded on hundreds of hours of tape, or come from first hand interviews with the cue makers.
( Including Craig) We are the principal contributors to the first & second editions of The Blue Book of Pool Cues, establishing ALL prices for all cues for the first time ever. We have traveled the world, visited with and interviewed over a hundred cue makers who we consider our friends, and, we continue to be very involved in cue making circles. I am still a contributing editor for Pool & Billiard Magazine and wrote dozens of articles frequintly about cues. In the last twenty five years I can safely say I have seen more high-end cues than anyone, and continue to see them as I am in touch with dozens of cue collectors around the world. Some of the greatest collections in the world will be featured in the third edition of The Billiard Encyclopedia. I (we) Blatt have sponsored two high-end cue shows, and, we will do another this March. I have the largest collection of cue material, pictures, and catalogs in the world. I could go on but I'm running out of space.
May I also ask what gives you the right to print erronious material about me and Paul when you hardly know us and havn't seen us for many years. Do you think that by mentioning our names it gives you more credibility on the site? Honestly Milton, what exactly are your credentials as regards cues, or cue making, or cue history or anything about cues.
All the best,
Vic Stein
P.S. And what's with that post about not showing your best Craig Peterson cues? I would think someone who reveres him as much as you would be proud of his collection and would want to share his best works with the world, seeing as there are so few.
my remark about cp "not being a well known cuemaker at the time if his death" comes from ed young. when craig died, ed went to craig's shop to tidy up. there were three unfinished cues, one was mine. ed wanted to get ONLY A TOP CUEMAKER to finish the last three cues. he called several(there weren't many back then) and according to ed ONLY BARRY had heard of craig. so am i going to believe you or ed...i choose ed. as for your insisting that you knew craig before me, that's bullshit because MY peterson(the first that craig made for me) was the first you saw and you stated as much. whether you knew OF him previously may be my mistake, and i apologize for that even though that was merely a miscommunication...and that is the only apology you'll get from me.
all my cues answers have always been opinions, as most posters ask for that, and i always preface my opinions on things like hit, stiffness etc with "imo"s or the like. i have not said anything about the how's and why's of cuemaking,,,for that i would indeed require cuebuilding knowledge, so it would've been preposterous for me to say
and equally preposterous for you to intimate as much.
your lengthy list of your and paul rubino's credentials make one very nice paragraph,,,but let me ask, what is the point of that. i have never tread on "your territory", never question your resume, NEVER ONCE MADE A SINGLE ANATAGONISTIC STATEMENT ABOUT YOUR BOOK(
IF I'VE EVEN MENTIONED YOUR BOOK AT ALL), NOR QUESTIONED YOUR CONTRIBUTION. people already know you. are you trying to impress? if your point is to say "i've been in cue shops and you haven't, i've interviewed 1000 people, and you haven't, so i'm more credible than you", you are taking this arguement in the wrong direction, victor.
so to recap...........
about my statement that cp was not well known to TOP cuemakers. take it up with ed young.
as to your other allegations,,,they are simply unfounded, and i will put it to you once more, show my anything i've written that wasn't merely knowledgeable OPINION,,,,or that i said anything that required cuebuilding knowledge. i think with all the cuemakers who populate these forums, SOMEONE would have pointed out something i said wrong...but there hasn't been because i never talk about BUILDING CUES. the closest i've come is saying i think veneers are harder than recuts, and some cuemakers have retorted on that issue, and EVEN THEN my statement was an opinion on the cosmetic nature of the two.
now that i've straightened out how erroneous YOU are about anything i've said, we can end this abruptly before other posters start putting up tangental arguements.
if you want, i can start in on why i think paul rubino's cues are bad(opinion) and why he has no design sense,,,,a subject i HAVE posted about two or three times....and you KNOW i'm qualified to speak about that. AND THAT IS ALL I'VE EVER SAID ABOUT PAUL RUBINO'S CUES. far as i know, none of that requires "cuebuilding knowledge".
that is why you're here,,,,because of my statements regarding PAUL RUBINO'S cues,,,and not for anything else! EXPECT CRITICISM!,,,that's the business paul is in. get over it and move on. if you want me to embarrass paul, i can give a clear example of why he has no sense of design,,,to be exact, i said PAUL RUBINO HAS A "DUCT-TAPE" MENTALITY". .....want me to?? i have expressed some design critiques at skin's designs as well, but we had good discourse, and he didn't try to overwhelm me with his extensive resume or any "how dare you impune my cue design/who the f*ck are you/ever been in any cue shops?." i think you dabble in exaggeration when you say i've given erroneous facts about you and paul...YOU i only mentioned about when you knew craig and nothing else,,PAUL the only erroneous material are his cues, of which i have stated opinions.
as to not showing my cp's,,,where have you been hiding, victor,,,under a rock? i believe i have seen 4 fakes,,,and john wright tried to sell me one. so if i'm overreacting to this current cue-copying zeitgeist, so be it....that is MY business.
in the meantime, i await your examples of me stepping out of bounds about my cue opinions. i would be more than happy to retract any statement that led any member to think i was a cuemaker. so get you people to cull azb for you...i can think of two of those people right now.
and btw, clearly you have little forum experience to know that it is inappropriate etiquette to reveal someone's name. that i prefer anonymity doesn't diminish anything i say, but bully for you that you think that THAT makes your statement resonate better than mine. also, you and paul are public figures in the pool world AND ARE ALWAYS addressed by name openly BY EVERYONE in many forums. so your reason for printing my name is idiotic at best.