JOSSWEST FANCY
NATIVE AMERICAN DESIGN
WITH FLOATING POINTS
BY BILL STROUD
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Here is another classic old Josswest cue by Bill Stroud. I just bought it from a private collection, where it has been locked away since it was new. In fact, for all practical purposes it still is new. The shafts appear to be unplayed.
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Bill lived in the Southwest for most of his cuemaking career - Colorado Springs, Austin, Riudoso and Phoenix - and this had an impact on many of his designs. He made quite a few Southwest style, and Native-American designed cues. This is a a good example of such a cue, containing inlays of arrows, fletchings, Thunderbirds, and "petroglyphs" of fish.
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This cue, however, is a relatively rare design for Stroud. He made very few cues with floating points. It makes you believe he had a very special design in mind when he built it, and he certainly carried through in a successful way. The more I study it, the more I like it. It's really an impressive cue.
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The forearm is made from stained birds-eye maple with four ebony floating points, heavily inlaid with ivory. Each point has an inlaid orange veneer, with a complex inlay pattern of inlay which complements the pattern in the butt sleeve.
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Between each of the four floating points is a spear shaped pattern, going up and down, made from an ebony inlay with ivory inlays in the middle.
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The butt sleeve - all ebony - is also very heavily inlaid, again with ivory. It is a complex array of Native American symbols, all woven together into a beautiful pattern. A unique ring pattern is used at the top and bottom of the sleeve consisting of ivory "arrow fletchings" connected by colorful pieces of wood veneer.
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As with most of Bill's cues at this time, he uses a linen wrap, this time in an off-white with black specks. Linen was always his first choice - he only used leather when it was specially requested. This cue was built in the 1990s, thus no logo on the butt cap. At that time he was engraving a simple JW in the weight bolt under the rubber bumper, along with a date.
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One of the many highlights of this cue are the rings. He actually has three different ring patterns built into it. At the joint, he uses a really neat pattern of what looks like little ivory arrow fletchings, each with a colored veneer in the middle, with small ivory dots put in-between. Then in the butt sleeve, he uses a different pattern of fletching-like ivory inlays connected with shorts pieces of veneer in alternating colors.
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Then, just above the wrap, he adds the coup d'etat - a final and third ring pattern of small ivory thunderbirds in a wide ebony ring, each built with a turquoise inlay in the center.
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A very complex and unusual array of inlays make up this very unique pattern in the points.
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I believe every thing white in this stick is ivory with the exception of the butt cap. I think it is the ivory substitute material that Bill used in a lot of his sticks. It looks a lot like ivory, but is probably not.
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The joint is ivory over wood - in my opinion, the best playing joint Bill used. He builds it with a 5/16 X 18 steel bolt.
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It comes with a gorgeous set of custom Stroud-built joint protectors of ebony, ivory, and veneer. Each one is built from ebony, with a generous ivory cap, milled with notched around the sides, with a turquoise inlay in the top. In addition, the butt cap is inlaid with the same impressive ring pattern that is in the cue. Even better, the shafts have the same special caps, only without the ring work (each has a thin ivory ring at the bottom. (Usually, when Bill built joint protectors, he would build one very nice one for the butt and put more generic caps on the shafts. He didn't like building joint protectors, so many of his nicest sticks don't have the matching protectors.)
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I always like joint protectors when the butt cap has a lip which surrounds the edge of the joint, for extra protection. Plus, it just looks good!
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It comes with two original, perfect shafts with matching ringwork, matching joint protectors and ivory ferrules. (One tip has been chalked, but probably to test-hit only. The shaft doesn't show any signs of use.) I believe the tips are original. Each shaft measures about 12.5 mm. It weighs 18.2 ounces, and shafts and butt are all very straight.
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This a beautiful example of Stroud's work at this point in his career. And, it is in near perfect original condition - with all ivory inlay work. This cue has it all!
PRICE: $6800 PLUS SHIPPING
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