JCIN said:
I am curious. How the hell did these cues get where they are. The catalog cues I have seen are pretty pedestrian. Nothing revolutionary there. The "New" cues ,which if what has been posted here is correct, go from around $8K to $25K+ and while interesting seem wildly overpriced.
I can see that for a legend like Bushka or Boti maybe even a Gina. But when did Tony Scianella (sp) become a living legend on par with these guys? I am not knocking Tony at all I think he makes a quality cue. I also think he has the best marketing of any cuemaker ever.
I am genuinely curious. I have fooled with custom cues on and off for about 10 years. I remember when Black Boar was just another cue. Now they are magic. What happened? Is it just a case of tapping into the "Mine is bigger than yours" demographic?
Impeccable work, right market, low supply, high demand. Tony doesn't "market" the cues, they have acquired the reputation they have through the work itself.
As to the question of playability; They do have a fantastic hit but we all know hit is quite subjective. The hit to me is similar to a Joss, Scruggs, Runde-Shon, Jensen, Gilbert type. Bustamante won his first pro event using a Black Boar that was loaned to him by Dieter Eisele, a cue dealer in Germany. According to Dieter, Bustamante was almost in tears when he acquired the Bear Cues (Made by Falcon) sponsorship and had to give back the Black Boar.
Tony's work is what has earned him the place that his cues occupy. I am quite sure that while George Balabushka was alive there were many many many folks who didn't think his cues were any better than a McDermott, Meucci, Palmer and so on.
And it's true, from a purely tactile expression and surface inspection, there isn't much difference in cues to the layperson. To the connoisseur and the scientist the differences between the low to mid range and the very high end are quite discernible and measurable.
I one spent an evening with Joey Gold at his shop. I have always liked Cogs and owned several. I had made a comment once that any competent manufacturer ought to be able to make a Cog down to the last silver inlay. And they should be able to - BUT not without Joey to show them the way.
Because it's the process that Joey Gold has developed that makes his cues feel and play the way they do. That process is incredibly hard to reverse engineer simply by inspecting the finished product or even by cutting it up. Joey does things for reasons of his own that aren't obvious but they work. The end result is a 57" inch combination of materials that taper from approximately 1.25" to ca. .5" and joins in the middle. Not much different than any $50 cue you can buy in most stores when laid side by side.
The difference however is what went into that 57" to bring it to life. That is what makes his and Tony's work worth so much to those who understand it. To those that don't they will simply remain overpriced pieces of wood and plastic. But the very moment that any person begins to explain and justify the price of one cue over another, be it the difference between a K-Mart special and a Viking, or a Schon and a MCdermott, then they have just defined why a Black Boar can be worth $25,000 to someone else.
) Now, IMHO, one of the reasons for this, is Lucky (
