Undervalued Cues
- Thread starter ribdoner
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Omen. For both the workmanship and the hit, Pete's cues are hard to beat for the money. I bought my first Omen used from a third party- it had some problems that i didn't recognize until after the sale. Pete stood behind the cue 100%, rebuilding it completely for a very nominal fee. I've since had Pete refinish another of my cues, and bought a second stick from him as well. A terrific guy to do business with.
Jim
Jim
Breaking the mold...
I'm gonna go a wee bit against the grain on one of my choices.
I absolutely agree with Jensen, Gilbert, Skip Weston, Olney, and Omen.
I have to add Wayne Holmes in there, though. I'm a huge Holmes fan, and have had 3 of 'em custom made to my specs. All were completely different in design, but all were completely consistant with respect to the great hit and feel. I know there aren't too many Wayne Holmes fans out there...but for the HUGE amount of cue you get for the money, his cues are WAY underpriced...and WAY underappreciated. This makes it easy, though, to get the exact cue you want....without the 5 year wait or the 4 digit pricetag.
Just my opinion.
Rat (Mark)
I'm gonna go a wee bit against the grain on one of my choices.
I absolutely agree with Jensen, Gilbert, Skip Weston, Olney, and Omen.
I have to add Wayne Holmes in there, though. I'm a huge Holmes fan, and have had 3 of 'em custom made to my specs. All were completely different in design, but all were completely consistant with respect to the great hit and feel. I know there aren't too many Wayne Holmes fans out there...but for the HUGE amount of cue you get for the money, his cues are WAY underpriced...and WAY underappreciated. This makes it easy, though, to get the exact cue you want....without the 5 year wait or the 4 digit pricetag.
Just my opinion.
Rat (Mark)
pharaoh68
Banned
DawgAndy said:
The reason I (and others) put Paul Fanelli on this list is because you can spend almost $2,500 on a high-end, ultra-butterflied Paul Fanelli one of a kind! And it will be truly beautiful. It'll play like a dream too. Now, take that same design to Richard Black and he'll do it. BUT, the butterflies will be of a lesser quality, the price tag will be double, and the play will be downright awful. Paul's craftsmanship, especially when referring to butterflies, is unrivalled. He could get away with charging a hell of a lot more for his cues than he does.
Skip Weston? You can get a cue from Skip for $1,200-$1,300 that would cost about $2,200-$2,300 from Scruggs, Mottey, White, and a slew of other top-notch cuemakers. While their point work may be incredible, they do not rival Skip (though it may be close). As far as inlays go, Skip is certainly up there with some of the best. Now, take any Skip cue. Suppose another cuemaker built the same cue. Compare the pricetags. That is where the "undervalued" label comes from.
I sorta see your point, the Fanellis I saw carried 3k. I don't think Black was a good comparison though. When you buy an older name cue like Scruggs or Mottey you're paying for all the years of expeirence plus some built in resale value. There 's only a couple guys building cues like Fanellis.Bill Webbs are at the low end of this scale and Barenbrugge (like him or not) is at the high end.
Murray could do us all a favor and flood the market this year with like 10 cues
I can't see his cues being undervalued anytime soon.
Pharaoh, point taken.
Andy
Murray could do us all a favor and flood the market this year with like 10 cues
I can't see his cues being undervalued anytime soon.Pharaoh, point taken.
Andy
pharaoh68 said:
I agree with Murray....real good prices for the quality of work you get. BTW, Andy is truly a custom cuemaker and he will make you whatever you order. He prefers the hit of the short joint, so that's why you see more of them. He also prefers his LBM ferrules (like SW has), but you can still get ivory from him.
Sean
You cannot compare Barrenruge to Fanelli. Fanelli is 3 steps higher than DB. If Fanelli sold out overseas he would get the same money. If you compare the two cues its not close. In fact 2-3 years ago when we had about 6-8 Fanelli butterflies, DB took ALOT of pics. Alot, and then his style shifted a hair. I know because I let him take the pics. Paul is such a nice guy, him, Jack Justis, and Buss are cut from the same cloth.
If Murray would come out of redneck retirement, he would be undervalued LOL. But he is popping out babies, not cues.
Joe
If Murray would come out of redneck retirement, he would be undervalued LOL. But he is popping out babies, not cues.
Joe
pharaoh68 said:
I put Bill on my list because the kind of work you get from him on his cues is really incredible. Over the last 4 or so years for roughly $3500 you have been able to get a "lazy z" cue, which IMO has better workmanship in it than basically any other cue out there, including all of the big names. Don't believe me, stop by our booth at one of the shows and let's compare the work in some cues. And the big names won't build you anything this fancy for the price. It would cost you $1500-$2000 more...at least. Bill is unbelievably meticulous with his work and how his cues perform. Show me one guy that does the black outlines inside his ivory peacocks as a separate ebony inlay (that's a inlay cut into an inlay, cut into another inlay). Everybody's doing one inlay and scrimming it and using black glue.
That's how I'm interpreting undervalued in this case. There are different ways to be "undervalued" depending on how you look at it.
The problems with Bill's cues, perceived low resale value, and the prices that some "retailers" are offering them at is plain and simple poor control of marketing. This is something other cuemakers can learn from.
I mean, when John Wright sends out 1000 flyers to most all of the cue-buying public in the US and Far East advertising Bill's cues for $100 over dealer cost.....well, we are still feeling the aftershocks and it's been how long since John passed.
Sean
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pharaoh68 said:
Pharaoh68, I agree with you 100%. GREAT, sure, but undervalued......not hardly. Some people probably will find it hard to differentiate this thread from "their 5 favorite cuemakers".
Sean
Sean, I think the reason buyers shy away from McDaniels is the models he has. You can go into a poolhall and while unlikely you can see the exact cue owned by someone else. Another reason might be he dosent to spliced points anymore. Most of the points of his cues have a speartip on top and some do not care for that. I still think he makes a fine product.
I have to agree with McDaniel for the amount of work he puts into the cue and with Andy Gilbert. Someone else who should be mentioned is Darrin Hill. While Darrin is still fairly new, he makes a great hitting cue and is a great guy to deal with. I think Mike Capone should be mentioned only in the entry level cues he makes. They are great hitters for great money. Once you put a couple of points and a little ivory it seems like the price goes through the roof.
cgriffin5 said:
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you. For the last several years we've literally been been browbeating him to start back building sharp pronged cues, more custom stuff, and get away from repetitive "model" cues. He's been a "production shop" more or less for years, and that ties right into my point of how he's done an extremely poor job of marketing.
But, even at that, it's hard to disagree that his model Q8 is "undervalued" in my opinion when you look at the workmanship, 25-30 or so ivory inlays, 2 shafts, etc. that you get for the price (~$1000). [a Gilbert will run more than that now.]
So it's hard to say whether it's undervalued or not ...