Another source of wood that you can certainly call old growth are old house cues from the 1930's back. I have accumulated close to 300 now, and I buy them whenever the price is right. Most have warped forward of the points, however, I have around 80 at this time that are still perfectly straight and can be dated by their Brunswick decals or other other methods I have found to determine the date. Back in the time I am speaking of, most of the shafts are 13mm plus at the ferrule, if they ever had one in the first place. You see ferrules or Cue points as they were known, were an option through the end of the 1930's, you had the choice of Black fiber, Buckhorn, Ivory, or no ferrule at all from Brunswick.
In most cases when you remove the shaft you have 31 or 32 inches of length to work with, which keeps everything over sized by todays standards. I have removed shafts and found up to 60 growth rings at the cut. Not to mention the fact that even if the butt is not perfect for conversion, due to the points or other problems you can still cut sections for butts, rings, or for coring dowels. Wood that has dried for 60 plus years is about as stable as it gets, and the grain / contour of the wood is also pretty well figured in most cases. In addition many of these older cues were hugh by todays standards from the points back, which is also a plus.
So, like I said nothing is really wasted and it is hard to find anything close for the price of these old one peice cues.
Oh and by the way, during the time frame Brunswick was making house cues from about the 1880's through the 1930's wood was not Kiln dried. It was aged in special rooms at the factory. Now I an uncertain how long they actually let it dry before use, however, I suspect that it was close to 8 years due to some information I have found over the years. So if a cue was made in 1900, the wood most likely went into a drying room around 1892 when it was received at the factory. During that time frame they certainly did not buy small quanities and you must also keep in mind that is was also unkown how long the tree had been cut down before it was milled, stored, and shipped for use.
I cut the tree three years ago, just now getting shafts.
, to see if it gives you the Woollies!!!!!!