PAUL HUEBLER
CUSTOM SHOP
VINTAGE EBONY COAST CUE
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Paul Huebler, a very successful cuemaker from Southwestern Missouri, was a pioneer in American cue making. He began building cues in the early 1970s and continued well into the 21st century, although the number of sticks he made declined significantly as he got older. He passed away in 2016, but hadn't made cues since 2007.
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Paul primarily made player-level cues and had his own unique marketing style. He would build a batch of cues, get in his car and drive around Missouri stopping in pool halls where the proprietars looked forward to his visit and the chance to restock their show cases with some of the nicest cues available at the time. I became acquainted with him in my home room back in those days, Cue & Cushion in St. Louis. They were one of his early dealers and C&C was one of his favorite stops as they stocked up on his cues. In fact, one of my first cues was a Huebler.
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His cues were fairly recognizable because of his distinctive designs utilizing crosses and chess pieces in his inlay patterns. Nothing fancy - all basic work done cleanly - but the kind of work that was better than most at the time. Most people who remember his work can easily recognize his cues. What most people didn't see, though, was the small amount of work he did in his custom shop where he made some very fine and cues for high-end collectors across the country.
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This is one of his most famous builds and one of the cues of which he was most proud, even putting pictures of it in his custom cue advertising flyer (see below). One of the special features of the cue I have for sale here is that this one was purchased by a collector and as far as I can tell it has never been played. It does have a little age on the finish, but it has never even been chalked.
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He identified his custom shop work by an engraving on the bottom of the butt cap, which can only be completely seen by removing the rubber bumper. In this case: CUSTOM SHOP - APRIL 1994.
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He built very few box cues, and this design was about as fancy as cues got in the mid-90s. Only the top cuemakers - Bill Stroud, Ernie Gutierrez, and a few others were making cues of similar design at this time and I think Paul was showing that he could make cues as well as any of them.
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While a lot of collectors don't even know that Huebler made cues in this category, or of this quality, there is a very select group of Huebler collectors who do know, and they're constantly on the prowl for one of his rare custom shop sticks.
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This cue, a very rare box cue, was seldom made by anyone in those days. Only the top cue makers attempted them. I suspect Paul only made a few. This is the first one I've ever seen. Made primarily from ebony, he made it using long ivory rectangles in the forearm, and the "fiddle" inlay pattern which was popular at that time.
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Pictured here, along with one of his business cards, is one of Paul's advertising flyers from that time period picturing this model. He called it the Ebony Cue. The cue I have here is identical to the one pictured in his flyer except for a different color wrap. (These come along with the cue as added provenance.)
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The "fiddle" pattern in different forms was used by a number of cue makers of this era, and is still used occasonally today. This particular one uses ivory for the body and red veneer for the "neck", going in both directions.
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For the boxes, he uses large squares of ivory framed in four layers of veneer - yellow (mustard), green, red and black.
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For the boxes in the butt sleeve, he again uses ivory, and this time reverses the colors in order so that the ebony veneer is next to the ivory. If he had done the same order as in the ebony forearm, the ebony veneer would have disappeared.
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This one is wrapped with a black Irish linen with light white specks.
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He buillt it with a solid check ring above the butt cap, and below and above the handle. It gives the appearance of a solid black ring with inlaid maple rectangles, but on close examination it is actually three black rings, with the middle one alternating the use of black and maple rectangles.
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At the joint he builds a bolder set of rings, using it not only on the butt joint, but on the shaft collars and on the custom joint caps.
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One of the other things that made Paul's cue easily identifiable at the time was his use of plastic inserts in the female thread on his shafts. They worked quite well and his shafts always cinched down smoothly and tightly.
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He built it with a 5/16 X 14 steel pin, which was the good cue maker's choice at the time. However, unlike most, he used a flat-faced format. The joint is solid ivory, which has slightly yellowed over the years. The black butt cap is phenolic.
It comes with the two original 13mm maple shafts with ivory ferrules and (probably) LePro tips, although they could be old French Champions. It weighs 20.1 ounces (16.0, 4.1, 4.1) - nice, tight-grained old slow-growth maple.
This is a very pretty old collectible cue. Whether it finds its way into an existing Huebler collection, or is the first Huebler in the beginning of a new collection, I hope it finds a good home where it can be preserved for posterity.
PRICE: $6500 PLUS SHIPPING
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You can tell this cue was special for Paul by seeing how much time and effort went into the joint protectors. These are very unique.
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