[FASTLARRY]

Schuler cue out of business

This is a very sad day for me since I am or was a dealer for them, and I have played with Rays cues since 83, in 3-c and pool. I still use his cues on tour today. I set most of my world records with his cue. Ray was like my 2nd father. We were very close.

He dies, people buy it that don't know squat, Ray had most of it in his head, and the cpu stuff was corrupted, they had to start from scratch. This was never a large operation, but they finally moved from Palatine in Chicago to a near by new location, and around January of this year, I understand the shop closed, they auctioned off all their equipment and loose inventory. Their phones are disconnected and one is on fax only. They did not renew their BCA membership.

I guess the same thing did them in that did Meucci in and bankrupted them also, both were trying to sell $400 cues in a market that was buying $150 and $200 cues. Their cost of business here, vs their competition China, fells another one.

The rumor is, they will try to regroup. have their cues made in China, and try and go back in business. I would say the chances of that flying are slim and none. I know, no way I will be on that train going off the cliff.

If any one has any updated data, please share it here.

If they put Rays name on a Chink cue, he will choke on his Cigar butt and roll over in his grave. The day he died, I was doing a world tour and was in China and of course could not come back for the funeral being fully booked over there. He died twice, once that day, and today, if they go to China. It will be like the old Dufferin house cues made in Canada which were tanks, compared with the junk they are now making in China using the same name.

Schuler cue, gone with the wind, never to come back. One of the cue greats of all time, like Rambo, Balabushka. RIP RAY. You were da man, you made da cue. Everyone around you were moron's compared to you Ray. Fast loves Ya.


http://www.illinoisbilliardclub.com/conten...rs/Schuler.html

A very large portion of my billiards knowledge came from my close decade relationship with Ray. He made all my cues and never charged me for one of them. I must have 50 shafts, many are custome designs we worked on together. I was playing and showing with 10 different shafts until we discovered the Birch. Together we developed and designed the ultimate shaft, the one I broke all those world records with, which was not Maple, but Bankok Birch, and Ray did not have the money to promote or sell it, so the greatest shaft of all time, sits in my case and nobody knows about it. I could then do all my shots with 3 shafts.

I remember I was up during one of the top 4 blizzards of the last century, It snowed two feet, and rather than try to go home, he said, lets just drink and play 3-cushion on his 1925 primo table with his primo balls, both of us were using the #6 cuelemans shafts. He had bad heart disease at the time and was slowing down and with us being alone, he got to fire up his stogy and have a few belts of my Scotch. It was a great treat for him. I lost 50-45, and he was certain I was hustling him, setting him up, and I could not convince him that was my best game, that at 3-c, I could barely beat Bob Byrne or Jewett. We played 3 games, and I lost all 3 by about the same score, all were close. This delighted him to no end, he liked to win. When there was close to a foot on the ground that night, I said, lets make a run for it, I drive the Caddy, and I plowed out of there. He was amazed at my snow driving ability, I was from the Midwest and a big snow was not my first one.

I woke up the next morning and my car had vanished, all there were was big humps of snow in the parking lot. After cleaning off 2 or 3, I found mine, and Chicago is amazing how good and fast they are on getting streets back open. We went back to the factory which was on the weekend and the office was closed and I shoveled out his entire driveway, just so we could get back in and play more 3-c. Ray could not shovel then due to his weak heart. He was a big man, but becoming fragile.

He had a 2nd table there, next to the 3-c. The first time he had me come up was to perform for the locals at his factory and put on a artistic exhibition. When I arrived, I went over to marvel at the 25k perfect 3-c table from 1925, he had bought both tables years ago for a song and fixed them back up, then I settled in on the 1923 5x10 pool table, worth the same amount.

This was his annual New Years Eve party where he served food, booze and a top talent to put on a show. I loved the 3-c table and Ray said, pick which one you want to show on. He said, can you do a 3-c show, I said, sure, but its been 6 months since I have seen one and played with the big ball, I would have a better showing on the pool table. He said, Ok, most coming are the 3-c elite around here, but they all play pool as well.

I said, who have you had in before me, he said, Sammy Sayginer and Raymond Cuelemans. I went, holy shit, what an act to follow. I said, why didn't you tell me, he said, you would not have come if I did. I said, you got that right.

I am warming up trying to get loose after that monster drive up there from Atl non stop and I had the entire next day to practice and set up the table. The show would be that next night. I toss out 15 balls, slam them in without missing, and do it again and again, and a couple of guys watching said, I cant believe this guy, he has made 45 balls in a row without missing, smoking them into those little tight 4 l/2" pockets. I froze in my tracks, I had not checked them and now every orifice in my body began to shrink up into my body.

Ray came by and saw me turning purple and said what? I said, I have not played on a 5x10 since 71, and I have been playing in 5" pockets for months. Doing a trick shot show in 4 l/2" pockets, the kind of stuff I do, will damn near be impossible. I said, why did you not tell me about this table. He said, if I did, you would not have come. I said, you got that right. He said, Greenleaf was good enough to make a living showing on this type of equipment, lets see if you are as good as him. He walks off, chomps on his C-Gar, I went, bull shit yelling at him. Ralph did DF 3 & 4's, 2in2's, 3in3's, he never did the tough stuff I do, hell the man never even had a Masse shot in his show.

The crowd was full of legends and I performed the hardest toughest shots there were, and made every one, a few I had of course to make several attempts at, but everything I was doing was DF 10's and 11's. After the show Don Feeney swapped a few shots back and forth with me, what a man, player and teacher he was. The show in those tight pockets almost gave me a heart attack and I have never done another one since in 4 l/2" I refuse. I make them open the pockets, or find me a bigger table. I don't need that kind of stress. You make the shots, and they just blip out on you. It can be very frustrating. Tight pockets are not set up to hold balls blowing down the rails which happen in trick shots.

It was a small operation, Ray doing some of the main inlay work, his wife Cathy ran the office, Ivan did all the real work, and he later went over to Atlas, and is now President of simonis and the BCA, he was backed by a Mexican doing the dirty wood work and a retired part timer who hung around more than he worked. He was highly respected in the 3-c cue world, in the pool world, he was basically unknown. I was surprised somebody even bought the place when Ray retired, they got a bum deal and back luck with him dying early on them. I am amazed they kept it going for 5 years. Some older rich guy bought a company for his kid to run and have something to do. After Ray died, I don't think any of them, really had a clue.

[Pelican]

I have an old Schuler with floating points. It is signed. One of the shafts is really strange. The taper is as if it starts at the joint and goes to the tip. There is no straight section. When you bridge the farther you stroke the bigger the shaft gets. Feels really odd. I do like the cue though. Got it primarly for investment.


Later, Pel

[FASTLARRY]

Pelican, on Jul 13 2009, 09:01 PM, said:

I have an old Schuler with floating points. It is signed. One of the shafts is really strange. The taper is as if it starts at the joint and goes to the tip. There is no straight section. When you bridge the farther you stroke the bigger the shaft gets. Feels really odd. I do like the cue though. Got it primarly for investment.


Later, Pel

Cash in, sell it to me.

[FASTLARRY]

Ray sold 5 different shafts and it was a wonderful concept. One would be thin and whippy, and they would get stronger until you got into #5 the American. He could make his cue play like a Meucci, a McDermott, a Bushka, any thing you wanted it to. He had a short ferrule which was from the 3-c world. Past the #5 you got into 3-c shafts, which would be narrow at the tip and then get fat fast into a thicker spine. They were too strong for pool. He had the #6 Cuelemans, the shaft Raymond played with, and 7 & 8 which were stronger than whale shit.

He always used cured primo wood, and put on only Triangle tips, unless you paid extra for a Moori. He believed in a nickle shape and I always argued, for 3-c ok, but for pool do a dime. He would not listen, he could be quite bull headed.

You have to be careful and know what you buy now. The cues made and signed by Ray have value which will continue to go up. The cues made in the last 5 years after his death, have regular cue value, and will probably go down in price. Do not confuse the two and get hustled. Ray would make 12 very high end cues and bring them to the BCA show every year. He could not afford a booth and I would let him sit in mine so the Japs would know where he was, they would come buy and buy all of them from him.

When he died they had dozens of very high end cues signed by Ray in the drawers. These were all 1 and 2K cues and up. Ray showed them all to me. During the last 5 years, I would assume they sold them all off. The problem with Ray's fancy cues is I never saw one he made I liked. It was weird, I would love the butt, hate the forearm, or love the forearm work, hate the butt. I designed one for him that would have been beautiful, he did not like it and never made it.

Ray came up playing with a Rambo like I did, which was the brass joint. One of the problem with the Hoppe's was the pin was too short and weak, and Rambo made his pin bigger and longer. These were fine during the 14.1 straight pool era when all the shots were soft and the break was a soft safe. During the very early 60's 9 ball kicked off and that became the game to play over night. We began busting up those brass cues because they could not stand the force of the breaks.

That was when George Balabushka got smart, who was using Hoppe Titlist butts like Rambo was, and he shifted to a better butt with a stainless steel joint. The modern cue was then born. Meucci told me in his research and testing that the joint only accounts for 4% of the playability of a cue. So it really does not matter what joint you choose, plastic or steel, so you may as well go with steel and its strength as plastic always ages and cracks. Ray was an engineer with a technical mind. He kept the concept of the Hoppe joint which I liked, but dropped the weak brass for steel, used the short pin, but put a circle or a cap around it for added strength.

Nobody else ever copied this design. His cue was a tank, I could never break one. I never had a cue or joint fail. I cracked one ferrule in 10 years and I am practicing masses 2 hours a day. Rick Wright who was practicing his masses with his Meucci cue, would blow up a shaft a month, and destroy a total cue every 3 or 4 months doing the same thing.

Nobody ever made a better, or a more solid cue, than Ray did. IMHO.

"Fast Larry" Guninger

[coolcuedude]

You hate to see such a good cue, go away. Damn.

[GeorgeAllen]

coolcuedude, on Jul 15 2009, 05:49 PM, said:

You hate to see such a good cue, go away. Damn.

It makes you wonder now who you can buy from, what good is a warranty if they wont be around to back it up. I hear half of the distributors and dealers have gone under, I wonder if thats true?

[FASTLARRY]

GeorgeAllen, on Jul 15 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

It makes you wonder now who you can buy from, what good is a warranty if they wont be around to back it up. I hear half of the distributors and dealers have gone under, I wonder if thats true?

I have about 3 brand new Schulers in stock, they were not signed by Ray, I was going to keep them, but I may now let them go. They are 3 years old, never been chalked.