Glass Cues
Glass Cues -
by Andy Hunter June 2017
There are three different glass cues
that I know of.
The earliest glass cue was made in the
late 1920s to early 1930s. This was a time when cue makers were
experimenting with other materials than wood. Thurston were one of
the companies that were doing this. These early cue had a wire
running inside the full length of the cue for strength, the glass
had a yellow/green tinge to it.
The spiral pattern is in fact
the wire in the glass
They realised early on that they could
not be used with a tip put straight onto the end so they made a
spring loaded tip. These cues used to weigh between 40 to 50
ounces.
An Australian player who suffered from
Parkinson's disease found that the weight helped his game, Peter
Ainsworth may be the best person to find the name of this player as
it is his area of expertise. These cues were made for playing but
they did not take off, they are extremely rare.
The second ones were made in the late
1960s to 1970s. These were made as presentation cues and not
designed to be played with. They were presented to pubs and clubs
and from what I gather were presented by the breweries. They are
not as rare as the earlier cues but are difficult to get a hold of
especially in their original presentation case as shown in the
picture.
The third glass cue I know of is the
Embassy which was a presentation cue presented at the world
championships in 2004. This is modern for me, I don't know if a few
were made or just the one. This cue was recently for sale on ebay
(June 2017) .
All of these cues are
collectable.
©2017 Andy Hunter
Pictures Andy Hunter and Martin
Chesworth (www.chesworthcues.com)for the Embassy Cue
