TheThaiger
Banned
Anyone know how they play? They come up on ebay uk quite regularly for very reasonable prices, and I'm tempted to buy one.
Why do the Universal cues (that come with the Smart Shaft) have such low resale value
- Thread starter justinb386
- Start date
Just a little backstory to set things straight for the readers.
The company that makes both the Universal Smart Shaft and the Universal cues is called Taican. Bill Stroud was hired to go to China and teach Taican how to make good cues. He did that and the result was that they make good cues now. Now, they along with KaoKao are the two leading production cue makers in China. They could be compared to McDermott and Viking for both quality and rivalry.
And other cue makers have helped Kao Kao throughout the years so both companies are well versed in best practices for making cues. Not to say that they ALWAYS follow best practices but for the most part they turn out decent to really good cues. And by that I mean cues you can easily take to a world championship finals match and have no doubt about the cue.
In the past decade these two factories have traded employees many times with engineers defecting to the other company and back again. So much so that it's probably possible that the owner of each could probably walk through each other's buildings blindfolded by now. In other words they both know all there is to know about making cues and how each other makes cues. But I digress.
Now it's a war of marketing. Taican, taught to make cues by Bill Stroud, appropriated the UNIVERSAL brand so that they could build it into their flagship brand. For Kao Kao it's FURY.
The UNIVERSAL brand is thought of as a good cue here in China by players who can play. It and Fury are the two top brands of production cues now. Some would contend that but I feel that this is right.
So anyway that's about as much as I know of the Universal BRAND and who makes it. It would be MY GUESS that the brand was not intended by Bill Stroud to be used for cues in general and should have been reserved for the shafts which presumably he had or still has a piece of. I would guess that he gets nothing from the cues being sold under the Universal brand. But that's shooting in the dark.
And with that I really don't have anything else to add. I think the OP's questions have been adequately covered. As to how the cues play, they are ok. The shaft doesn't feel like a Predator to me at all. It plays like a decent shaft nothing super special to me.
<So anyway that's about as much as I know of the Universal BRAND and who makes it. It would be MY GUESS that the brand was not intended by Bill Stroud to be used for cues in general and should have been reserved for the shafts which presumably he had or still has a piece of. I would guess that he gets nothing from the cues being sold under the Universal brand. But that's shooting in the dark.>
This is correct.
They are not supposed to sell the cue with the Smart Shaft.
Fairly typical for the Chinese. It seems they all lie and that a signed agreement means nothing to them.
Bill S.
This is correct.
They are not supposed to sell the cue with the Smart Shaft.
Fairly typical for the Chinese. It seems they all lie and that a signed agreement means nothing to them.
Bill S.
hmmmmm......
Maybe you should build them a dream cue.
