God Of Billiards George Balabushka Cues

By Author: Clifton
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The movie The Color of Money, when Paul Newman gave Tom Cruise the valuable cues (Its collection of George Balabshka), it arouses interest and concepts of billions of amateurs to start collecting the cues, and it started ask who is George Balabushka?

Actually in the early 1959, Geo Balabushka has benn making cues. The cues he made are as exquisite as the famous pianos made by the russian Strndivari. At that time, lots of fancy players (those days, a lot of profeesional players has emerged in America) has regarded his cues as a prized collection.

George Balabushka was born in Russia 1912, pass away in 1975 at the age of 63. He came to America at a young age of 12 and settled down in New York. His first job was in Manhattan, making wooden toys in school for teaching purposes. Thus giving him the opportunity to acquire the basic foundation and knowledge of characteristics of wood. Later in his life, he opened a company manufacturing wooden products, and because of this, his middle finger was cut off by an electrical saw. Not satisfied at the sight of ...
... losing a finger, George made himself a wooden finger, his craftmanship is so good that even his friends did not realized that he lost his finger.

George loves playing billiards when he was young, he used to take part in competitions, and because of his exposure, he came to know renowned contestants and billiard celebraties.

Besides taking care of his business, George also helps his friends to repair cues. At the same time, Frank Paradise used his own name to brand himself, and George sees it as an opportunity. By the end of 1959, George made some cues himself and gave it to his friends as christmas gift, he was also collecting data and feedback on the performance of his cues. Not long, George Balabushka started accepting orders with his thirty years experience in wood working business.

Between 1959 to 1962, George is churning out 20 to 30 cues every year, as George's character is a simple individual, it has also reflected in his cue designs, but George always emphasizes on the performance of the cues. During competitions in America, contestants were always discussing and using Balabushka's cue, because of the exposure, Balabushka cues were getting famous gradually, this led to more orders. The orders were coming in so fast, even some of them are willing to send George an authorised unwritten amount piece of check, just to own his cues.

According to billiard experts, professionals and renowned manufacturers, in George Balabushka lifetime, he has only produce 1000 to 1200 cues. Currently, an original, unscathed cue produce by George Balabushka will sell at US$15,000 and above. And during 1960, there are already fake Balabushka cues are already circulating in the market. Nowadays, It is never easy to authenticate the original Balabushka cue by American Cuemaker's Association, but can be done by experts: Pete Tascarella、Bill Schick、Barry Szamboti、Richard Black、Bill Stroud (Joss West)、Ernie Gutierrez (Gina)、Paul Rubino. Billiard enthusiast can never be too naïve to believe that a cue with an imprint of Balabushka have to be the real deal, you have to know that the original Balabushka has been sold by his family to other billiard companies like ADAM.

There was once a report in Florida, writing about a billiard player saw an old man using a worn cue to chase away a dog. Intuition tells him to stop the car, and he bought the worn cue from the old man for $50. Before going home, he stop by a cue-repair shop to repair the cue he just bought. When the shop owner unwrap the package, he stood shocked with his mouth slightly ajar, knowing that the cue was signed by George Balabushka with a number 70. Since then, it was used as one of the areas to identify a genuine Balabushka cue.

Although it is no difficult matter to manufacture a Balabushka cue by today's scientific standard, George Balabushka's intense knowledge of the basic foundation of cue material and his profound knowledge in joint technology has led to his fame and a must-have collection for all Billiard Cues Collectors.

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About the Author A ditributor and seller of fine billiard cues online. www.billiard-cue-site.com Specialize in providing famous fine billiard cues at an affordable price.More excellent articles at www.billiard-cue-site.com