Many custom pool cue manufacturers have models or brochures of their cues. If you buy one of their model cues, is it still considered a custom cue?

This is a question that is being discussed in many forums…

The word ‘custom’ is overused and overexpressed in the world of cue making, especially when a cue is for sale where this single word can give the cue a different status making it more ‘sellable’. In some places it is used to categorize any two-piece cue…

Some of the answers are in the definition of the word custom. Custom means ‘made to order’ – if you were not involved in the construction then it is not a custom sign. If you ‘order’ a signal to his specifications, you have, by definition, a “custom pool cue”. Now, you sell that cue. What happens now? The person who bought it, did not have it ‘custom made’. Is it still a custom sign? If not, what is it?

When people talk about ‘production signals’, mass production comes to mind, but how many signals does a company produce before they are considered ‘production signals’? The word custom… means just that. Tailor made to buyers specifications etc. If a cue is requested with a certain weight, balance point, shaft taper, butt diameter, ferrule, etc. then that sign is custom made and therefore a custom sign. If the cue is sold to John Smith later…then it is no longer custom built. It’s just a sign.

The focus should be on the sign, not the creator. If, for example, any cue manufacturer builds a unique cue that looks exactly like a cue previously built by another (but was individually built and did not roll off the production line), it would be considered a custom pool cue. On the other hand, if a high-profile custom cue maker decided to mass-produce a standard four-point cue to buy “off the shelf,” then those particular cues are considered production.

There are 3 types of cue manufacturing:

• 1. Sign Production: More than 1 sign made to manufacturer specifications and is intended to target a general or specific market
• 2. Custom Production or Semi-Custom Sign: Any existing production sign (readily available) in which the “stock” or existing specifications

has been modified to specific customer specifications (eg, shaft diameter reduction, wrap change, name engraving, addition of inlays or markings, etc.)

• 3. Fully Custom Cue – Any cue made from scratch to all customer specific specifications (choice of materials, ring design, balance point, length, weight, taper, etc.)

LIMITED CUES can be of the 3 types of manufacturing:

• 1. Limited production – limited number of signs made for the public
• 2. Limited Semi-Custom – Limited production sign that has been modified to the specifications of a specific person
• 3. Limited Full Custom – One or more identical-looking cues made from scratch to a particular customer’s full specifications

A fully custom sign will always remain a fully custom sign as it has been created for a specific person in mind.

The manufacturing technique used to produce a sign can also influence how the sign is classified as custom or production. The cue can be made by hand or machine-assisted. Does the use of CNC disqualify a cue from being a custom pool cue? This is another discussion in itself, but again, if the sign is entirely machine-made but the design is specific and original, then the answer is clear.