It was near Fathers day 1976 and I wanted to treat myself to a my first two piece pool cue. I stopped into a billiards supplier whose name of the store I will not mention- but it has been around for a long time and is still in operation. I wanted a good pool cue. Something with a good maple shaft but not too fancy. I only had thirty five dollars on me. I walked up to the clerk who was rather busy at the time. I asked him to show me something in my price range. He began to show me some cues that you would expect to find today in the sporting goods section of any K-Mart. They had cheap yellow wood shafts and shiny nylon wraps on them. They sucked!
I knew what I wanted and I explained to him exactly what type of cue I was looking for. He then reached into a wood bin full of cues and pulled out a 21 oz. Adams cue. It had a two tone black and gold Irish linen wrap on a beautiful Birdseye Maple cue with a brass joint. It was also decorated with three different colored pearl rings at the butt of the cue. I fell in love with it right away, especially after he let me hit a couple of balls with it. I asked him how much it cost and he told me it went for sixty five bucks. At that instant my heart fell to the floor as I looked at my measly thirty five dollars. He then handed me the cue and said these magic words that I till this day will never forget,"Quick, before my boss comes back from lunch." He scurried me out of the store so fast that I almost dropped my new cue on the ground on my way out the front door. I’m pretty sure he pocketed the money for himself and his boss never saw a penny of it. Anyway, I had that cue for about 15 years and it was still as straight as the first day I bought it. One day I felt the urge to buy a new cue so I gave my Adams cue to my little brother from The Netherlands (a college exchange student I had taken under my wing) to take home with him after he had finished college.
According to the Blue Book of Cues, that Adams cue is now worth about a thousand dollars. I wish I was double jointed so I could give myself a good swift kick! So before you give away your cue learn from my dumb mistake. Do your homework and find out what it is worth. And to my little brother from The Netherlands-Arthur if you read this I hope you still have that cue! You owe me big time buddy!
Bob (The Shark)
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