Famous Billiard parlor cuemaker series – George Balabushka, God of Billiards

The movie “The Color of Money”, when Paul Newman gave Tom Cruise the valuable billiard cues (Its collection of George Balabshka), it arouses interest and concepts of billions of amateurs to start collecting the billiard cues, and it started ask who is George Balabushka?

Actually in the early 1959, George Balabushka has been making billiard cue stick . The billiard cue stick he made are as exquisite as the famous pianos made by the russian Strndivari. At that time, lots of fancy players (those days, a lot of profeesional players has emerged in America) has regarded all his billiard cue stick as a prized collection.

George Balabushka was born in Russia 1912, pass away in 1975 at the age of 63. He came to America at a young age of 12 and settled down in New York. His first job was in Manhattan, making wooden toys in school for teaching purposes. Thus giving him the opportunity to acquire the basic foundation and knowledge of characteristics of wood. Later in his life, he opened a company manufacturing wooden products, and because of this, his middle finger was cut off by an electrical saw. Not satisfied at the sight of losing a finger, George made himself a wooden finger, his craftmanship is so good that even his friends did not realized that he lost his finger.

George Balabushka loves playing billiards when he was young, he used to take part in competitions, and because of his exposure, he came to know renowned contestants and billiard celebraties.

Besides taking care of his business, George Balabushka also helps his friends to repair billiard cue stick . At the same time, Frank Paradise used his own name to brand himself, and George Balabushka sees it as an opportunity. By the end of 1959, George Balabushka made some billiard cue stick himself and gave it to his friends as christmas gift, he was also collecting data and feedback on the performance of his billiard cue stick. Not long, George Balabushka started accepting orders with his thirty years experience in wood working business.

Between 1959 to 1962, George Balabushka is churning out 20 to 30 billiard cues every year, as George's character is a simple individual, it has also reflected in his billiard cue stick designs, but George Balabushka always emphasizes on the performance of the billiard cue stick. During competitions in America, contestants were always discussing and using Balabushka's billiard cue stick, because of the exposure, Balabushka billiard cue sticks were getting famous gradually, this led to more orders. The orders were coming in so fast, even some of them are willing to send George an authorised unwritten amount piece of check, just to own his billiard cue sticks.

According to billiard experts, professionals and renowned manufacturers, in George Balabushka lifetime, he has only produce 1000 to 1200 billiard cue stick. Currently, an original, unscathed billiard cue stick produce by George Balabushka will sell at US$15,000 and above. And during 1960, there are already fake Balabushka billiard cues are already circulating in the market. Nowadays, It is never easy to authenticate the original Balabushka cue by American Cuemaker’s Association, but can be done by experts: Pete Tascarella?Bill Schick?Barry Szamboti?Richard Black?Bill Stroud (Joss West)?Ernie Gutierrez (Gina)?Paul Rubino. Billiard enthusiast can never be too naïve to believe that a cue with an imprint of Balabushka have to be the real deal, you have to know that the original Balabushka has been sold by his family to other billiard companies like ADAM.

There was once a report in Florida, writing about a billiard player saw an old man using a worn billiard cue stick to chase away a dog. Intuition tells him to stop the car, and he bought the worn billiard cue stick from the old man for $50. Before going home, he stop by a cue-repair shop to repair the billiard cue stick he just bought. When the shop owner unwrap the package, he stood shocked with his mouth slightly ajar, knowing that the billiard cue stick was signed by George Balabushka with a number “70”. Since then, it was used as one of the areas to identify a genuine Balabushka billiard cue stick.

Although it is no difficult matter to manufacture a Balabushka billiard cue stick by today's scientific standard, George Balabushka's intense knowledge of the basic foundation of billiard cue material and his profound knowledge in joint technology has led to his fame and a must-have collection for all Billiard Cues Collectors.

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