Hunt & OByrne cue

[platt]

The above named cue 1 piece has reached £520 on ebay with 5 minutes to go. Are these cues this good to make this kind of money ?

[mattyshinobi22]

i would like to know this 2, any hunt o bryne experts out there?

i do know asian collectors pay well over the odds for them, dunno why

[ADR147]

they are good well made cues, the black plates especially - they do fetch a lot of money i have sold them for more than £500 on several occassions its the jimmy white link i think that makes them desirable.

[craigslater]

link please

[garysnooker]

i think jimmy white plays with one

[platt]

Did John Parris claim that Jimmy uses one of his cues somewere ?

[ADR147]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEDW:IT&ih=018

[ADR147]

i see you bought it craig. - i know of one that was a main tour players cue for 15 years, it might be for sale if you are feeling flush...

[Oldgit]

The above named cue 1 piece has reached £520 on ebay with 5 minutes to go. Are these cues this good to make this kind of money ?

Obviously SOME Hunt & Obyrne cues are amongst the best available handmade cues but equally some are not!! Back in the mid 1980s a standard black badge H&O cue was £450 and a handmade to your very own spec was £550 and upwards!! This was a staggering price to pay for a cue back in 1985 and indeed at that time I opted for a John Parris handmade cue for 'only' around £350!!

Will Hunt produced the cues and Will has always had a reputation for making a first class cue. Indeed he recently came out of retirement (he has a bad back which prevented him working for a few years) and he now works at Robert Osborne cues in Tooting, London. I am certain that Will will still make anyone a handmade cue today but the price will be £500 plus!!

Hunt & Obyrne owes a lot to Jimmy White....aparantly he once walked into the old H&O shop at the Elephant & Castle and just picked up a standard black badge cue that was for sale in the shop and he played successfuly with that cue for many years. People watched Jimmy play fantastic snooker back then and bought H&O cues hoping that they would play like Jimmy, exactly the same way today that people watch Ronnie Osullivan play with a Parris Traditional and buy a Parris cue hoping to play like Ronnie!!

So, to answer the original question.......H&O black badge cues are the best cues that Will Hunt made and are the equivalent of todays Parris Ulimates so are worth whatever you are willing to pay for a handmade cue made by a top cuemaker.

Oldgit

[ADR147]

i will give you £500 for the three you own mikey !!!

[Oldgit]

i will give you £500 for the three you own mikey !!!

£500 deposit sounds about right mate......and you can pay the remaining £1000 balance later...........

[trevs1]

Perhaps I should not say this....but....

The prices these cues appear to reach is, in my opinion anyway, totally unrealistic.

I have personally seen some of these cues change hands for ridiculous money, when in reality, they just have not been worth it, it's as simple as that.

An example of this is perfectly illustrated in a cue I saw just about a fortnight ago.
I was shown the cue and asked what I thought of it, it was an old H & O cue from the 80's by the look of it. The shaft was at best, nothing out of the ordinary, the splicing was good, but certainly not perfect or even close to it. There was some slight splitting just around the joint, and, the joint needed re-finishing to the timber of the butt and shaft.

This cue was bought for £400......YES £400.

I said, that in my view, without the name badge, it was a £100 - £150 cue, tops.

Now, I'm not saying for one moment that Rob Osborne and Will Hunt can't or don't make excellent cues, because I've seen some of their work, and in my view, it's definitely as good as it gets. BUT, the money these cues seem to go for IS without question not good value for money at all.

I personally think it's due to the fact that Hunt & O'Byrne are no more, and to that end, somewhat collectable in the eyes of some people.

[poolqjunkie]

If I order two plain ebony ash cue from Hunt and Osbourne with the same spec, one black and one green, is a black label going to be better than a green lable? In what way will it be better? Could someone please help me to understand this? I kno what is said on the web site about how the wood was turned, etc...but in real layman's term, how is one better than the other? Does it play better? Is the points going to be even on one and not the other? Are the tapers different? Will they be balanced differently?
How about the difference between a red lable and a black label to the same spec, just plain ebony ash?

[poolqjunkie]

I always thought a cue maker who takes integrity in his work would try to make sure all the cues that leave his shop are top notch. I can see a cue maker offering a machine spliced and butterfly spliced version for a bit lesser money for those who wants the hit of the cue but cannot afford the money for a hand spliced version or whatever, but to offer several different grads of hand spliced version confuses me, making me wonder if he would take less time in the lower grade cues and take more time in the upper grade. Does that mean I am getting something he did not really put 100% efforts into if I order a red or green label? Then if that is true, why would he put out a cue that he did not put 100% effort into?
My friend has a Will Hunt, with four secondary splices with several veneers. Quite a fancy cue--but the points are not even on the bottom. The plate is white, and the words are black, not sure what kind of lable or plate it is called in Will Hunt's system.
Another friend of mine had one with a crack along the splicing above the joint, and the brass joint has really raised. I am not sure if it was poorly handled by the owner or what. The points are not even on this one either. It hits very solid.

[trevs1]

The difference in the two will be how they are made.

One, as it says, is hand planed, the other not. Now, whether that 'really' makes a difference to you or not is something only you can decide. The argument is that a hand planed cue will stay more reliably straight and suffer less distortion over its lifetime. Also, another aspect of the 'Totally hand made' cues is that the customer is able to specify the grain pattern of the ash, or, is able to specify absolutely clear, blemish free maple, and then have that hand planed into a shaft.

Now here's the thing. In truth, any amount of issues CAN and DO occasionally arise from even the best looking blanks of timber, thus rendering them virtually useless for a top quality cue. That's a bit annoying when you've spent hours planing it out by hand don't you think???

Another point is this....

Arguably the single biggest factor in whether a cue stays straight or not during its lifetime, after it's left the workshop of a maker is due to the conditions and treatment it receives through that lifetime. No matter if the cue was planed by hand over a 100 years and allowed to settle in between planing, it WILL move and bend if it's neglected, mistreated or abused...fact.

As for the playability of a turned or plane cut shafted cue, well, I would defy anyone on the face of the planet to tell the difference by using it alone, it is just not possible.

When you consider these points, what do you want to spend your money on???