First of all, I wanted to say that I’ve been Tony’s biggest critic – or one of, at least… I’ve not been shy to voice my opinion about what I deem as quality or lack thereof. I have never held a Zinzola cue in my hands, only judged from what I’ve seen in pictures online, as there is nobody in the PNW that has one of his cues.
A while back I was getting quite a bit of pressure from what I believed to be Mr. Zinzola’s “crew” for all of my negative opinions. I guess I felt that in order to accurately give an honest review, I should probably just pick up the phone and order one…. Only I couldn’t find his number. I went to Tony’s website and found his “contact us” form and filled it out. I got a phone call from Tony within probably 10 minutes of hitting send. The funny thing is little did I know that Tony was on the phone with Mike Webb when he received my email and I guess Tony thought I really was an asshole, until Mike let him know that I was a really good guy… (thanks Mike).
Tony and I spoke on the phone for the better part of an hour that day. He asked what my preferences were, in terms of style, weight, playability, etc. For anyone that feels this is a biased review – I paid for this cue in full. Anyways, so after the phone call, from that point on, I have to honestly say that I have never – ever - worked with any cuemaker that was as openly communicative as Tony has been throughout this entire process. All emails were responded to within hours, if not immediately. The build time was accurately quoted. Actually, it would’ve been accurately quoted had his wife not given birth, but it’ll be a week or so late…. I can understand that. Just this once. I literally got an email at midnight on a Tuesday night saying, “I’m not going to be able to ship your cue tomorrow like planned, I’m taking my wife to the hospital. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” – If that’s not dedication, then I don’t know what is…..
So as you all know, this is as of earlier this month. The day before he told me he was going to mail it to me, I hit him with another request – joint protectors…. I received a very prompt response with several four letter words, as Tony does not like to make them at all. He was nice enough to tell me yes and to add another week or so to delivery (which proved to be a few weeks).
My cue:
This cue is still in Tony's possession until tomorrow. I should have it by the end of this week and plan to play with it for many hours and will then update the thread with the most important part - playability.
I just wanted to share my experiences to date and thought I'd throw this out here now.....
A while back I was getting quite a bit of pressure from what I believed to be Mr. Zinzola’s “crew” for all of my negative opinions. I guess I felt that in order to accurately give an honest review, I should probably just pick up the phone and order one…. Only I couldn’t find his number. I went to Tony’s website and found his “contact us” form and filled it out. I got a phone call from Tony within probably 10 minutes of hitting send. The funny thing is little did I know that Tony was on the phone with Mike Webb when he received my email and I guess Tony thought I really was an asshole, until Mike let him know that I was a really good guy… (thanks Mike).
Tony and I spoke on the phone for the better part of an hour that day. He asked what my preferences were, in terms of style, weight, playability, etc. For anyone that feels this is a biased review – I paid for this cue in full. Anyways, so after the phone call, from that point on, I have to honestly say that I have never – ever - worked with any cuemaker that was as openly communicative as Tony has been throughout this entire process. All emails were responded to within hours, if not immediately. The build time was accurately quoted. Actually, it would’ve been accurately quoted had his wife not given birth, but it’ll be a week or so late…. I can understand that. Just this once. I literally got an email at midnight on a Tuesday night saying, “I’m not going to be able to ship your cue tomorrow like planned, I’m taking my wife to the hospital. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” – If that’s not dedication, then I don’t know what is…..
So as you all know, this is as of earlier this month. The day before he told me he was going to mail it to me, I hit him with another request – joint protectors…. I received a very prompt response with several four letter words, as Tony does not like to make them at all. He was nice enough to tell me yes and to add another week or so to delivery (which proved to be a few weeks).
My cue:
This cue is still in Tony's possession until tomorrow. I should have it by the end of this week and plan to play with it for many hours and will then update the thread with the most important part - playability.
I just wanted to share my experiences to date and thought I'd throw this out here now.....
:grin:
