Home of Gunn Cues

For those of you that are unaware of George Balabushka and his cue making fame, he was exposed world wide in the movie, "The Color of Money". When you view that movie, notice the reaction when Paul Newman (Fast Eddie) hands over to Tom Cruise a beautiful custom cue. Cruise embraces it across his chest with arms crossed and in his devilishly cute smile, says "Balabushka". That is the overall general reaction the public has when they just see, touch, hold and/or play with a Balabushka cue stick.

The man, George Balabushka, a russian immigrant, was a master craftsman who resided in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York until his death in 1975. Today his cue sticks are the most sought after cues ever made. To give you an example of their value, one story goes that the great pool player, Cicero Murphy, raffled off his Balabushka for $5,000. The eventual winner I'm told, then sold that cue for $150,000.00.

I was fortunate enough to have met the master, played pool with him and even got him to make me one of his hand crafted cues.

When I was 10 years old, I was known as "Boom-Boom" and had just won $100 in my first pool tournament in Brooklyn, New York. With the purchase of my own cue stick from Balabushka, who made them from the garage of his house. I had meet him previously at Overton Billiards and had played with him many times. As such, I knew of his reputation in our community as an excellent cue craftsman.

On February 24,1969, I visited George at the back of his house in his garage in order to discuss the details of his making me one of his masterpieces. Upon entering the garage workshop, he showed me some cue shipments sent to him for repairs. His impressive list of customers included none other than the legendary Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, among others.

Soon afterwards, I was shown a wooden box. Inside it were a number of finished and unfinished cue butts. I was instructed to choose one of them for my cue. I looked at several of them, inspected the points and the multi-colors in them and then chose one of my liking.

However, he said to me, "No, no, not that one; it has a knot in the wood," and told me to pick another one. As I chose, I can still recall his smile. Unbeknownst to me at that time, George rarely made his own butt blanks and had them made by other individuals who in turn sold them to George. The aforementioned cue butt that I chose, was on information and belief, made by another great cue maker, Gus Szamboti.

Furthermore, I recall asking George to make me a clear glass bottom type of cue butt (which is not made of glass, but plastic) and I sought to have him place inside that clear bottom a ten dollar gold piece. He instantly refused to comply with my request insofar as it would be impossible for the cue to balance true. Instead, he recommended that I put inside the glass bottom butt my nickname,"Boom Boom" in gold lettering. I did just that! In fact I have yet to see another Balabushka cue stick with that personal feature.

Other details of my Balabushka cue were discussed that day and are embodied in a Balabushka written receipt, which I still possess today. Apparently, since I was of such a young age, George demanded from me a deposit on the order of $50.00. I owed a balance of $40.00 upon delivery of the cue. My Balabushka cue cost me at that time, approximately 35 years ago, a total of $90.00.