.. I won the cue. I received the cue and the case. I inspected the cue and determined that the cue was made by someone with intimate knowledge of cuemaking of that period. This cue was seen by a few people and we all agreed that the maker of this cue could be one of a few people. The butt plate and ring section are identical in length to my Szamboti. The joint screw assembly however is close but not the same. The ring in the center of the joint phenolic is weird. All the materials are period. There are things that I wont divulge that are really close to the big two in cue making. But in the end, I think either it could be a Frye, could be a Szamboti, but I don't think so. I would wager Frye. The cue was bought out of Philly.
All this being said, there was a problem with the cue. Here is where it gets good. You can read the auction claiming it is straight and perfect. Well let me tell you, straight must be a real relative term in Philly. It was warped and out of center. Anyways I contacted the seller once we rolled the cue. I left 3 voice mails, 3 e-mails, no return contact. I had to file the listed paypal buyer protection clause. Anyways it took a while, took some e-mails, photos, a letter from Paul Rubino, and I finally got my money back.
But this guy obviously was a yard saler and probably got this cue from a yard sale. Its a shame I couldn't get him to respond, I felt the cue was worth 500 or so as is. I would have offered a partial. But the guy was a real a$$ about the whole thing. He has 100% feedback and instead of doing the right thing initially, he now has 99.8 or whatever. But be very careful with auctions because you're going to fight like hell to get it resolved. Anyway lesson learned... If you see it back on e-bay.. good luck.
JV
