George Balabushka facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
George Balabushka
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George Balabushka in his garage-based carpentry shop.
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| Born |
Gregori Balabushka
December 9, 1912 Russia
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| Died | December 5, 1975 (aged 62) |
George Balabushka (born December 9, 1912 – died December 5, 1975) was a very famous cue maker from Russia. He made special sticks for playing pool. Many people called him the "Stradivarius of cuemakers." This means his cues were like the best violins – super high quality and rare. Sometimes, people just say "Balabushka" to mean a cue stick he made.
George came to the United States in 1924. He worked in different jobs, like making wood toys and furniture. He loved playing pool. In 1959, he bought a pool hall with a friend. He started making cues as gifts for his friends. Soon, many other people wanted to buy them, and his hobby became a business.
Balabushka made about 1,200 cues by hand during his 16 years as a cue maker. This was from 1959 until he passed away in 1975. His cues are now very valuable collector's items. They became even more famous after being shown in the 1986 movie The Color of Money. Balabushka cues are often grouped into three types. These types depend on the kind of wood "blanks" (the main part of the cue) he used. These periods are: the Titlist blank era (1959–1966), the Burton Spain blank era (1966–1971), and the Gus Szamboti blank era (1971–1975). Real Balabushka cues can sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction.
Contents
Life and Career
Early Life and Moving to the U.S.
George Balabushka was born in Russia on December 9, 1912. He moved to the United States in 1924 when he was 12 years old. His family, including his parents Anton and Natalie and his younger sister Mary, settled in New York City. His original name was Gregori. But George said that immigration officers at Ellis Island gave him the new first name, George.
His Jobs and Skills
George Balabushka's first job was designing and making wooden toys. He worked for a company that made building blocks for schools. Later, he built children's furniture. While working, he lost his middle finger in a band saw accident. He was so skilled that he made himself a new finger from plastic. It looked so real that his friends didn't know he had lost his finger for a long time. As George became better at working with wood, he started building accordions and other detailed wooden items in his free time.
Family Life
While working at the furniture company, George met Josephine, who would become his wife. They got married in 1941 and bought a home in Brooklyn a few years later. George and Josephine had two sons, both named George and Gregory after their father.
Josephine was very supportive. She gave George the time and space he needed to become a great artist and perfect his craft.
Becoming a Cue Maker
George Balabushka loved playing billiards. He especially liked a game called straight pool. He even took part in competitions. In 1959, he bought a Brooklyn-based pool hall with a friend. While running the pool hall, he started fixing cues as a hobby. Soon, he got the idea to design and make his own pool cues.
By the end of 1959, Balabushka had made several cues. Most of them were given to friends as Christmas gifts. People loved them, and he started getting orders for his cues. His first cues were made by changing existing "Titlist" cues. These were one-piece cues, meaning they didn't have a Joint|joint in the middle to break them down for easy carrying. At that time, only a few people made cues by hand. Most cues were made by large companies.
His Cue-Making Career
From 1959 to 1962, Balabushka made about 20 to 30 cues each year in his spare time. Because there were so few private cue makers and his cues were excellent, his name quickly became known among professional players. By the end of 1962, he had more orders than he could handle. So, Balabushka sold his share in the pool hall. He turned his garage into a woodworking shop. By 1964, he was making cues full-time and kept improving his skills.
Unlike many large companies, Balabushka focused on how well his cues played and their fine craftsmanship. He was always trying new things in how cues were built, how they were finished, and their design. Balabushka's cues were not usually fancy or overly decorated. Most of his cues were quite simple. Many of his special building methods are now standard in the cue industry. For example, he used Irish linen for the handle wrap. He also used a checkered pattern of rings above the wrap, often with black ebony and white ivory. These are now famously called "Bushka rings."
George Balabushka passed away in 1975 when he was 62 years old. After his death, he was honored as the first person to be added to the American Cuemakers Association Hall of Fame in 1993. In 2004, he was also added to the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
Cue Details
Balabushka cues are grouped into three main types based on the "blanks" he used. Blanks are the bottom part of a cue (called the Butt|butt) where different woods are joined together. At this stage, the cue hasn't been shaped on a lathe yet, and parts like the handle wrap, joint, and end cap haven't been added.
Even though the blanks changed, some features were common to all Balabushka cues. The front part of his cues was usually made from straight-grained maple wood. He believed this type of wood was stronger than curly or birdseye maple. He almost always used stainless steel joints and delrin (a type of plastic) for the butt caps. A few of his cues have ivory joints and butt caps, which makes them very rare and valuable. Balabushka used a special reddish-brown bumper at the end of his cues. He also used Cortland Irish linen for many of his wraps. Sometimes, he used a leather wrap, which is very rare and makes those cues even more valuable. Unless someone asked for a different size, all his cues were 57½ inches long.
Besides "Bushka rings," he often added other decorative rings. These included colored plastics (sometimes looking like marble), silver, and different wooden rings. For decoration, Balabushka often put small mother-of-pearl dots and diamond shapes into the wood. Many of his cues had window-shaped maple pieces on the butt sleeve, each often showing a burl (a knot in the wood) for a nice look. Unlike many other cue makers, Balabushka rarely used ivory inlays or signed his cues. People still argue about what kind of finish Balabushka used. Some say he used an oil finish, while others believe his later cues had a spray lacquer coating.
Titlist Era Cues (1959–1966)
When Balabushka first started fixing cues at his pool hall, he began changing "House cue|house cues" (cues found in pool halls) into custom cues. Many of these house cues were made by Brunswick. When he started making his own cues in 1959, he bought blanks from Brunswick that were used for their "Titlist" cue line. Many other great cue makers of that time also used these Brunswick blanks.
Making a full spliced blank from scratch was hard and costly. Brunswick's large factories made good quality blanks with nice points and strong construction. Balabushka's workshop was small, just a lathe and other tools in his garage. So, making his own full-splice butts would have been too difficult and expensive for him.
Burton Spain Era Cues (1966–1971)
Balabushka used Titlist blanks until 1966. Then, a man named Burton Spain contacted him. Spain had just started making handmade spliced blanks and was selling them to Frank Paradise, one of Balabushka's main competitors. Spain had learned a lot about splicing after seeing a Titlist cue split in half. He wanted to make even better splices. At first, Spain wanted to make his own cues. But by 1966, his excellent blanks were in high demand. So, he started making blanks full-time for other cue makers until 1970.
Balabushka was very impressed with Spain's splices and started buying from him. Buying from Spain also meant he could ask for custom blanks. During this time, Balabushka began adding more detailed designs to his cues, like his famous Bushka rings. Many cue makers after him would put Bushka rings both above and below the wrap. Balabushka only put them above the wrap. This is thought to have helped keep the cue's Balance point|balance point higher. In 1970, Spain sold his cue business to John Davis, who had been helping him. Balabushka continued to buy blanks from Davis until 1971.
Gus Szamboti Era Cues (1971–1975)
In 1971, Balabushka met Gus Szamboti at a tournament. Szamboti worked as a designer for RCA, but layoffs were common. So, he started designing and selling pool cues for a more stable job. He also started with Titlist blanks, but later began making his own. Balabushka was very impressed with Szamboti's blanks. The two men became good friends, and Balabushka became Szamboti's first customer, buying blanks for $18 each.
Balabushka cues from the Gus Szamboti era often have straight-grained maple forearms with four ebony points. They usually include four thin layers of wood (veneers) in colors like black, green, white, and mahogany, or sometimes orange instead of mahogany. Cues from this period, which were made in the last five years of his life, are considered the best of his career. There are rumors that a few cues made during this time might have included splices made by Balabushka himself.
Why He Is Famous
It's thought that Balabushka made between 1,000 and 1,200 cues in his lifetime. However, by the mid-1960s, fake Balabushka cues started appearing. This shows how well-known he already was as the top cue maker, often called the "Stradivarius of cuemakers." Balabushka and his cues became much more famous after being shown in Martin Scorsese's 1986 film, The Color of Money.
In the movie, Paul Newman's character, Fast Eddie Felson, gives a beautiful cue to Tom Cruise’s character, Vincent Lauria. Vincent takes the cue, clearly amazed, and whispers "A Balabushka..." After this, many people started to connect Balabushka's name with very valuable and rare cues. However, the cue used in the movie was not a real Balabushka. It was a Joss Cues model made to look like one. The filmmakers worried that a real Balabushka cue might get damaged during filming, especially in a scene where Tom Cruise's character spins the cue around. A real Balabushka was too valuable to risk.
Real Balabushka cues that have been proven to be authentic can sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction. For example, in 1994, a collector bought a Balabushka for $45,000. In a 1998 newspaper article, a collection of thirty original Balabushka cues and six Gus Szamboti cues was estimated to be worth 2 million dollars. These cues were compared to famous paintings by Rembrandt and van Gogh in the world of cue collecting. However, there are many fake Balabushka cues out there. To make things more confusing, in the 1980s, with his family's permission, a company started making many replica Balabushka cues.
Images for kids
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George Balabushka in his garage-based carpentry shop.
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A pool cue and its major parts.
See also
In Spanish: George Balabushka para niños
