well the thing is that ur pet peeve is a little misguided. all cuemakers price their cues based on what they feel their time and effort is worth. some might rely a little heavier on their established names but cues are always priced based on what the cuemaker believes his time is worth. and to be honest, some fancy cues take a total of less than 200 hours to make. most of it is just working on it incrementally to ensure that everything stays right. when u look at it, 200 hours is less than 10 days. stretched over the course of the build time which can be up to 2 years or more, thats not much time spent on actually making the cue. however, because of the skill required to build the cue, u end up paying a premium price for it.
the same can be said for a simple cue. while a simple 4 point 4 veneer cue maybe a lot easier to make than a 10k fancy cue, u r still asking the cuemaker to use his skill and expertise to build the cue. sure, he might not be using his highly honed inlaying techniques etc. on ur cue since it's a plain cue, but that doesnt make his time worth any less. it's like if u consult a lawyer over a legal matter, he will bill u by the hour regardless of what u ask him about or how hard the job/case might end up being. he can fight a traffic ticket for u and knock it off easily but he would still bill u the same hourly rate as he would if u presented him with the toughest case of his career. so if u ask a reknown cuemaker ot spend his time making a cue for u, he will charge u what he feels his time is worth regardless of the degree of difficulty in making the cue. if the cue is fancier that simply means he has to spend more time on it which is reflected in the higher price. this is why cues from top tier makers that r relatively plain to begin with still cost as much as they do. in order to build ur cue they are foregoing the possibility of earning money by making someone elses cue, so they will charge u the fixed rate. if they dont then there would never be any plain cues since they would just spend all their time making fancy cues as those would make them more money.
also consider that if they charge less for it, people on the secondary market will sell that cue for a lot more based on the name and reputation of the cuemaker. so if dennis for example charges me 2k to build this cue, and i turn around and sell it for 4.5k (a realistic assumption since we've all seen these sell for that price) then in this instance he just made me a lot of money. i have put in absolutely no work but made a lot of money off the hard work that he put into the cue. os if the market dictates a price for his cues then he and any other cuemaker would change their prices to reflect the market price.
i also disagree with what u say about bringing the pricing up and justifying it by saying its ur opinion. just because its ur opinion doesnt mean it should be voiced publicly. a pet peeve of mine is when people just say whatever they want and justify it by adding IMO at the end and expect everything to be fine. for an extreme example consider someone who is racist, he can just blurt out racial slurs and claim that they are his opinions. while that may be true, that doesnt mean he should have said them at all. obviously the situation here is nowhere near that but that example is just to illustrate my point. in this situation, ur opinion might affect this person's sale. it would be different if he took a cue worth 4.5k in market value and tried to sell it for 9k then maybe u should tell him and everyone else it's overpriced. because then u would at least be arguing with facts and not just a subjective opinion. it would still be against forum rules but at the very least u have facts to back it up so that it can be justified. but when its priced at or near market value it should be left alone.
also, while this is not directed at u, can we please stop with the "oh i guess we should only post positive comments and not negative ones" argument. i see this in so many threads but its not even an argument...just annoying.
1. the two are unrelated, just because u posted a positive comment dosent give u any right to post a negative comment in another thread...especially if it's only based on a personal opinion, and a minority opinion at that.
2. no one is telling u to post anything at all. if u want to post a positive comment then go ahead, but dont use that to justify bashing someone else's thread.
3. if someone did that in ur thread when u were about to finalize a sale on a 3k cue and causes the buyer to back out u will be pissed. so just leave it alone when it doesnt concern u.
4. giving an opinion is cool when someone asks for it. randomly posting ur opinion everywhere and letting people know when they never even asked u is just plain annoying.
5. it's against the forum rules to knock other people's prices anyways so the argument still doesnt hold.
as with everything, there are exceptions. if an item has been misrepresented or there are legitimate concerns about dealing with a seller then they should be brought up. but in a case like this, it should be left alone.
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Sarcasm goes along way.There's always a way around the system:wink:
