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God of Billiards George Balabushka Cues
Author: Clifton


Article provided by www.billiard-cue-site.com

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.

You will find more of fine and performance billiard cues at
www.billiard-cue-site.com

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
...


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