What was your first cue?

randallt6 said:
I wasnt even born then! lol my adams was around 400. inflation or what, haha.
Click to expand...

YEP, Mid-1970's that was back when a candy bar was 5 cent/ a coke was 10 cent/ a game of 9-Ball a dime /8-ball 15 cents/ or you could play by the minute ( on time) for 1 1/2 cents a minute and snooker was 20 cents agame / gas was 19-23 cents/ a new car was $2,000, a new house was $14,000.

...and an hours work was $1.25 hrs.

I made $20.00 a day gambling on pool!.or more....

not counting fliping quarters or pitching closest to the wall for a quarter!

that was chump change for a gambler back then.......

But I was only 14 yrs. old at the time!

I bought my first car at 17yrs.......paid cash!


DAVID HARCROW
 
Last edited:
Minnesota Fats brand cue in a hard 1x1 case, got it from my ex's dad who kinda helped get me into pool. I would have kept it for memories sake, but the thing warped so bad it could have been mistaken for a bow!
 
Since I worked in a pool hall from my early teen years, I can't remember my "first" cue, but it had to be a "house cue" that I had taken off the wall and fixed up as my "own" and stashed out behind the bar. I went through many of these cues before I ever got a two-piece cue in about 1968.

The best pool player in our town was a guy about 50, who was named Charlie. He looked like a cross between Willie Mosconi and Ceasar Romero...he was prematurely white-headed and had a thin white moustache and he always dressed real dapper. I used to watch him every time he came in and he had the smoothest stroke of anybody I had ever seen. He could make balls that seemed impossible and his position was pure magic. Over the years, watching him, playing with him and practicing hours upon hours, 6 days a week, for a couple years, I eventually became able to beat him and anybody else in my town.

One day he came in with a green vinyl fly rod case with a pool cue inside and gave it to me, or either sold it to me for about $10...can't remember that far back. Inside the case was a "Willie Mosconi" signature cue...LOL. It had green points painted on it and it had a actual leather wrap that was painted green like the points. It was made in Taiwan, but fortunately it had a shaft that was actually made out of maple instead of ramin wood, like most of the cheap imports were, an it had a glue-on tip instead of the screw-on crap that most Taiwan cues had.

I played with that cue for years and won tons of money with it before I finally broke down and bought my second two-piece cue in 1973. It was a custom cue from A. E. Schmidt out of St. Louis, Mo. I should be getting that cue back in my possesion shortly, and I will post pictures when I do.

I've had quite a few custom and production cues since then, but thinkng back about my old Taiwan "Willie Mosconi" still brings back fond memories of the days when pool was still alive and well.
 
1965, just before a 4 year hitch in the Navy, I got a AMF with a big butt tapering to a near snooker tip. It is 57" and defiantly old school design. It has been all around the Pacific, up and down the west coast, and is still in the poolroom closet.
 
In '84-'85 I bought a Huebler for $80 from Golden West in Tac Wa. it had green rings - the color of money! (THEN the movie came out) Less than a year later I sold it to a local named Alex LaFontaine that frequented our bar - the man had a cannon for a break! (And $30)
Got a McDermott D-9 next, spent 10 yrs with a high end Schuler production model, and have settled into a Mike Webb titleist conv. and a old Bill Shick Dufferin sneaky - with maple leaf (Thank you Poolrod and Diesel respectively!)
I am very close to 60 cues now, the only one I sold was the first!
I wish I still had it...
 
Purchase a Viking cue in 1978 and still have it, nice playing cue now in my cue collection. But still regretting not buying the cue my friend was telling me to buy if I only knew then what i Know now I would of purchase the Real.... Balabuska cue.
 
My first...

Technically would have to be the "China made special" w/ Nylon wrap, and blue stain, I picked up at TJMAX during an after Christmas special sell! Came with the standard black box case / red felt inside! Still have it, but hasn't hit a ball since I worn down the tip! Bought a Players (Model 9922) which was the first cue that got me real serious about the sport, and eventually into a slight addiction of cue collecting! :D Ps. Still have it too! although it still gets to hit balls now and then....
 
Last edited:
The first cue I ever used was a one piece Titlist. The 1st cue I ever bought was a Helmstetter. The 1st cue I ever won, was a Viking.
 
Mine was a taiwan cue (and can't remember the name). Wow, there's a cue that older than me, sometimes i hope my dad love playing pool back then, so i might have a vintage cue from him, but he just gave me a vintage racquet and electric guitar. Hehehe :)
 
My first cue........

My pop bought me a Willie Mosconi branded cue from Target back in 93 when I was 13. Years later my first custom cue was a McCosh cue ( local guy ).
 
First

The first cue I had when I stopped playing off the cig. machine(there was no wall rack) was one of the five peice with movable weight rings everyone on here laughs about. I even upgraded to the screw on tip. It was 1977.
 
schmizz said:
My very first cue was a Kmart 'Willie Mosconi' special. I probably paid $20 for in 1985 (case included). I was 13 and thought I was the sh*t! I soon found out I was playing with a piece of sh*t and soon went back to playing with house cues until I could afford a real stick 4 or 5 years later which was a Joss. :cool:
Click to expand...


My first cue was a carefully considered investment I made one day after another of my runs through the sports department of The Emporium, a glorious downtown department store on Market Street, right across from the cable car turn platform. The store was a throwback to San Francisco’s post earthquake glory days, with its huge glass dome, and was the place my family purchased a good many of our necessities over the years.

The Cue that became the object of my lust was displayed in a glass case there. The first time I saw it I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. And, with every passing visit, my desire grew and grew until it could not be denied. Somehow I scrimped and saved the $29.00 ransom the store wanted for the cue -- with its own faux leather luggage-style case, with red flocked interior (of course), and which showed off the cue to best advantage -- and sealed the deal one memorable weekend.

The Cue was a transcendent thing of beauty: polished brass joint; rich polyurethaned walnut forearm; red and black specked nylon wrap (genuine); and a butt plate of iridescent multicolored rings. I thought my Mom and Dad were going to kill me when they found out I had squandered most of my meager funds on “a pool cue?!” and I did suffer some withering words, offered in fatherly counsel, about “wasting” my money. But I did not care. It was worth it all.

I remember frequently locking myself in my room and lovingly wiping down the forearm of The Cue, using several paper towels and much of my Mom’s can of Pledge. To this day, like catching the wafting scent of a perfume favored by an old flame, a whiff of lemon-scented Pledge still reminds me of that cue and our first summer together. After a few months I came to realize that the black luggage-style case (with red flocked interior) made my look of aspiring hustler somewhat less than credible and I switched over to a soft plain black zippered case.

Lou Figueroa
 
Dufferin 2 piece house cue. My Whitten case was 10x more expensive than my cue at the time because I knew someday I'd be good enough to justify buying a great cue to put in that case.
 
A Schemlke with the big brass joint. When I wore the green brillo pad out after a week and the cue was still sticky and played like s**t, I went back and traded it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top