They start at around $20,000 for a 8pt and go up. He only builds a few cues a year thus the price is so high, he isnt working from home and has machine shop overhead.
The artistic part of them is what everyone seem to be attracted to, but Tony puts more time into making them play good and playing around with the physics than anything. How nice they look is secondary. And they really play good-there is no bolt at the A joint the butt is one piece of wood from the bumper up to the joint.
In some cases he uses ivory over Stainless for the joint, and again most people think its for some sort of look, or fancy touch. They are wrong, the reason he does that is to reduce the weight of the joint, If he has a cue that has enough weight at the joint he will use solid ivory, or in some cases all steel. Why he does what he does is beyond me, I just know what Tony told me, it gives him a way to adjust weight at the front of the cue as opposed to just a weight bolt in the ass end of the cue(he has room there as needed.
Everything on a BB is done for a reason and that reason is playability, to increase contact time with the CB he told me. Looks are just to help stimulate sales. His choices of woods, materials are all taken into consideration when he makes a cue. And as a rule the newer hi cues are the better they play-the 8pt cues playthe best he told me.
Dont shoot the messanger here please. :smile:
He learned alot from Gus he said, and I would say about 60% of my Gus cues feel like a 8pt Boar, some of Gus's cues are just heavier, I have a couple that feel the 95% the same. Same goes for Barrys cues too. They are very similar. Thats why they are at the top of the pyrmid-it aint a accident why it takes 15 minutes to sell a Gus, Barry(when priced right) and virtually no BB's are on the market. There are alot more Szams than BB's-thus the Szams make it to the market, the Boars that trade are private sales-usually.
