Are cues selling like they used to?

[Byrom]

Do you think the market is dead?

Is any cue worth over 500 pounds?

Can you get a good quality playing cue for less than 300 now?

Have certain brands gone past their worth?

Is there too much competition and does that drive down price?

Does everyone have enough cues now?

Is it better to try before you buy and where do you buy?

Do people like to try different makers?

Are you still looking for the one?

Do I ask too many questions?

What came first chicken - egg?

[billabong]

Do you think the market is dead? no, just rises and falls like all markets

Is any cue worth over 500 pounds? yes

Can you get a good quality playing cue for less than 300 now? yes

Have certain brands gone past their worth? certainly, but not all

Is there too much competition and does that drive down price? dunno

Does everyone have enough cues now? no such thing

Is it better to try before you buy and where do you buy? depends if you want a main playing cue, or just like collecting cues

Do people like to try different makers? hopefully

Are you still looking for the one? nope, don't play well enough to tell if I've had it or not. Just love playing pool / snooker / billiards

Do I ask too many questions? no

What came first chicken - egg? egg ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

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[andy carson]

they will be for the next 4 weeks or so with world champs fever kicking in and people deciding to fill the clubs playing whack a ball run on the tables!

[bolton-cueman]

Do you think the market is dead? nope

Is any cue worth over 500 pounds? some, my cue.... I wouldn't part with for a grand

Can you get a good quality playing cue for less than 300 now? yep

Have certain brands gone past their worth? yep - Parris - some I've seen recently are bobbins quality for the money

Is there too much competition and does that drive down price? nope. People wising up to the inflated prices cause the prices to fall to a reasonable level

Does everyone have enough cues now? I have 1. That's enough.

Is it better to try before you buy and where do you buy? yep and I buy from other players

Do people like to try different makers? Make has nothing to do with it for me. However I'd probably try a lump of driftwood if Trev White had worked on it.

Are you still looking for the one? Found it, bought it, play with it

Do I ask too many questions? No

What came first chicken - egg?

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[Leo]

Think people have realised that quality doesn't always mean the more you pay the better you get. With many cues out there especially from the Thai cuemakers many people are asking themselves is it really worth paying £500+ for a cue and then waiting years for it to drop on your door step. Is it all about about cue snobbery or following the crowd and what's hip at the moment or is it many people are swerving cheaper cues because they simply think it's only £250 it's going to be crap.
Me personally think there's some great cues out there that play fantastic and yes you won't get the wow down the local snooker club when they look at the badge or on here but give them a chance and you'll be very surprised on what's out there for far cheaper.

[billabong]

I see the same thing happening with cars.

Friends sometimes ask me for help looking for a replacement car.

I tell them 4 things.

1 / try before you buy, obviously
2 / Make a list of what you want from the car ( make it in order of priority ), and take it on the test drive.
3 / Do some homework about satisfaction & reliability surveys.
4 / Don't bother about the badge.

You'd still be surprised how many folk get through steps 1 to 3, then come home with a compromise , because
the badge wasn't something they were prepared to live with ( usually a Skoda badge ).

Doesn't matter how good the car, the customer satisfaction, the reliability, they refuse to take that final step.

Works with cues as well, but now, I think to a lesser degree. .
plus, one man's crap feeling cue, could be another man's extension of his arm. . .

oh, and I never practice what I preach.

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[Byrom]

Think people have realised that quality doesn't always mean the more you pay the better you get. With many cues out there especially from the Thai cuemakers many people are asking themselves is it really worth paying £500+ for a cue and then waiting years for it to drop on your door step. Is it all about about cue snobbery or following the crowd and what's hip at the moment or is it many people are swerving cheaper cues because they simply think it's only £250 it's going to be crap.
Me personally think there's some great cues out there that play fantastic and yes you won't get the wow down the local snooker club when they look at the badge or on here but give them a chance and you'll be very surprised on what's out there for far cheaper.

Firstly Leo nice of you to delete the thing from the other thread - shows your quality - and secondly I think I agree with you that you can buy a great playing cue for less but some people are addicted to buying and trying different cues and some maybe just buy the badge like you say - sure its nice to have a nicely made cue but I can play just as bad with one that costs less so I see your point - So maybe you are right but people can't help themselves and if you can afford it why not.

I mean you never loose much if you buy a good cue at the right price - its like saving up with bits of wood instead of bits of paper.

[golferson123]

Are cues selling like they used to?

yep but if you pulp wood you end up with paper

[billabong]

yep but if you pulp wood you end up with paper

. . which is what 20's are made of. . .

but yeah, you got to look after your investment.

[cueman]

Interesting discussion and though the individual cue makers along with the likes of JP still have a lot of orders, I think the cue shops like Green Baize, Craftsman etc are not doing as well as in past years.

I think its down to a number of reasons though. I think people are now realising that buying cues often is never going to improve your game, many of these places rely heavily on regular customers who just love to buy new cues and these people have either found the one or have realised they are throwing money away all the time and are making do with what they have.

Also we cannot forget the amount of clubs that have shut down over the past few years and this has also got to hit sales. The majority of orders for most UK based cue makers will be from China, and that has probably reached its peak now. I think the prices has reached its peak point as well and I think we'll see a trend soon for most cues to be priced similarly. I think £500 is about the highest limit that most players would be prepared to pay. The global economy is still struggling and there aren't that many people with disposable incomes that will shell out such a lot for a cue.

Fact is the majority of players are happy with a cue for around £50 and its that market that has so much choice that its hard to be dominant in that area. You can count on one hand the amount of players in a club that own cues like Parris, TW, Glover etc. These cues will always be sought by the serious players and some who just like to show off, however the market for the £150-£300 I think is drying up now as I see a lot of cues available at this price that seem hard shift.

[fredkite]

Definitely agree with your last point, it's the same in the club where I play. You see the odd JP and my magnificent Maximus but the rest are mostly Chinese cues.

[andy carson]

Definitely agree with your last point, it's the same in the club where I play. You see the odd JP and my magnificent Maximus but the rest are mostly Chinese cues.

loads of cuecraft in ours with the odd mastercue and craftsman in the mix, otherwise its the chinese or sports direct brigade.

[crispian]

This is only my own opinions on this so please dont shoot me !

Thailand, a country where the average wage needed is 4x less than the uk (£4,000-£16,000) so making cues at £300 where materials are far cheeper than here in the uk would give a profit on each cue of lets say a parris ultimate ?

This puts the thai cuemakers in a powerful position to employ more manpower, which also gives more guys searching through ash, more nice shafts found ect !

Notice how thai cuemakers are teams not one man bands ?

With this comes the burden on the boss, wages to pay, staff to keep happy, bills to pay just like any other business, a big operation only seen here in the uk by the likes of parris cues !

Now when you compare this with the uk cuemakers who mostly work alone things are totally different, every cue made is down to that 1 person to do, every phone call, every email, every 50 question conversation on messanger or text is all for 1 person to deal with !

Then you read the threads where clueless people seem to know more about how many hours it takes to make a cue, or even how many cues each cuemaker makes each week lol

But here is the best part, every cuemaker in the uk knows who does and does not do what ( where do you think gossip started in the first place ?) so this in turn will have an effect on pricing, can you imagine a cuemaker who goes through all the hassle of selecting timber ect and discarding the waist to fully make a cue and sell that cue at a lesser price than a competitor who takes a pre spliced cue out of a box delivered last week ?

Me personally, i can only see the price of cues going higher and higher unfortunatly, and in the case of those who make them this is not greed as it is by far one of the most demanding jobs going !!!

[Leo]

This is only my own opinions on this so please dont shoot me !

Thailand, a country where the average wage needed is 4x less than the uk (£4,000-£16,000) so making cues at £300 where materials are far cheeper than here in the uk would give a profit on each cue of lets say a parris ultimate ?

This puts the thai cuemakers in a powerful position to employ more manpower, which also gives more guys searching through ash, more nice shafts found ect !

Notice how thai cuemakers are teams not one man bands ?

With this comes the burden on the boss, wages to pay, staff to keep happy, bills to pay just like any other business, a big operation only seen here in the uk by the likes of parris cues !

Now when you compare this with the uk cuemakers who mostly work alone things are totally different, every cue made is down to that 1 person to do, every phone call, every email, every 50 question conversation on messanger or text is all for 1 person to deal with !

Then you read the threads where clueless people seem to know more about how many hours it takes to make a cue, or even how many cues each cuemaker makes each week lol

But here is the best part, every cuemaker in the uk knows who does and does not do what ( where do you think gossip started in the first place ?) so this in turn will have an effect on pricing, can you imagine a cuemaker who goes through all the hassle of selecting timber ect and discarding the waist to fully make a cue and sell that cue at a lesser price than a competitor who takes a pre spliced cue out of a box delivered last week ?

Me personally, i can only see the price of cues going higher and higher unfortunatly, and in the case of those who make them this is not greed as it is by far one of the most demanding jobs going !!!

I'm going to have to disagree with you on prices going higher, yes maybe in the shortfall but there will come a time the boom will fold somewhat. I'm sure we all understand that UK cuemakers have higher bills and work on their own etc but in effect if the general public can get a good quality cue cheaper then they will take it.

I personally think the cuemaker boom will take a massive hit in the near future not because of the quality of the cues but waiting lists and poor communication will play a massive part.

I know if a cuemaker is on their own it's damn hard work and I envy anyone who's in the business but in 2015 many people will expect a cue pretty much soon after they've made a payment.

[crispian]

I'm going to have to disagree with you on prices going higher, yes maybe in the shortfall but there will come a time the boom will fold somewhat. I'm sure we all understand that UK cuemakers have higher bills and work on their own etc but in effect if the general public can get a good quality cue cheaper then they will take it.

I personally think the cuemaker boom will take a massive hit in the near future not because of the quality of the cues but waiting lists and poor communication will play a massive part.

I know if a cuemaker is on their own it's damn hard work and I envy anyone who's in the business but in 2015 many people will expect a cue pretty much soon after they've made a payment.

thats the beuty of thai cues- there great cues at a price that will see the customer happy and the maker happy

as for uk cues can you see the likes of trevor white or dave coutts ect knocking the price of there cues down when they work so bloody hard ?