Balabushka Pool Cues
Balabushka Signature Series Pool Cues
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Balabushka Cues In Stock!

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Product Retail Price Our Price More Info


Balabushka SLE4A LTD Pool Cue

Balabushka SLE4A Pool Cue
Limited Edition #5 of 50 in stock

$2,695.00

$2,425.00



 


Balabushka SLE4B LTD Pool Cue

Balabushka SLE4B Pool Cue
Limited Edition #3 of 50 in stock

$2,520.00

$2,268.00



 


George Balabushka GB-1 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-1 Pool Cue

 $910.00

$819.00



 


George Balabushka GB-2 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-2 Pool Cue

 $799.50

$719.55



 


George Balabushka GB-3 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-3 Pool Cue

 $881.00

$792.90



 


George Balabushka GB-5 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-5 Pool Cue

 $1,004.00

$903.60



 


George Balabushka GB-6 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-6 Pool Cue

 $1,055.00

$949.50



 


George Balabushka GB-8 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-8 Pool Cue

 $1,004.50

$904.05



 


George Balabushka GB-9 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-9 Pool Cue

 $1,484.00

$1,335.60



 


George Balabushka GB-21 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-21 Pool Cue

 $1,004.00

$903.60



 


George Balabushka GB-22 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-22 Pool Cue

 $1,055.00

$949.50



 


George Balabushka GB-23 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-23 Pool Cue

 $1,750.00

$1,575.00



 


Balabushka GB24 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-24 Pool Cue

 $676.00

$608.40



 


Balabushka GB25 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-25 Pool Cue

 $959.00

$863.10



 


Balabushka GB-26 Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-26 Pool Cue

 $748.00

$673.20



 


Balabushka GB-GS Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-GS Pool Cue
Out of Stock until June 2024

   



 


Balabushka GB-BS Burton Spain Era Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-BS Pool Cue
Burton Spain Era

 $1,075.00

$967.50



 


Balabushka Titlist Era Pool Cue

Balabushka GB-T Pool Cue
Titlist Era

 $901.00

$810.90



 


Balabushka Jump Break Cue

Balabushka GB-JBK-1 Jump / Break Cue
Linen Wrap

$675.00

$607.50



 


Balabushka GB-JBK-2 Jump Break Cue

Balabushka GB-JBK-2 Jump / Break Cue
No Wrap

$650.00

$585.00



 


Balabushka Cue Shaft

Balabushka Cue Shaft 13 mm

 $270.00

$243.00



 



 

Product Retail Price Our Price More Info
 
 

George Balabushka

George Balabushka did not have the life one would expect from an average cue maker. Instead of growing up playing pool, young George – born in Russia – grew up in the last years of World War I, lived through the Russian Revolution, then when he was twelve moved halfway across the world to a new country, a new language, and even a new name. At Ellis Island, Gregory Balabushka became George Balabushka, and began his new life as an American. Balabushka spent his entire career working with wood, although he only made cues for about sixteen years. He started out making various wooden children’s toys and furniture in New York, which is where he realized not just his love but his talent for carpentry and woodworking. Despite having no formal training, he amazed friends and family with intricate carpentry pieces like accordions that he had built for fun in his spare time.

Balabushka also loved to play pool for fun. He loved to hang around the pros, or the equivalent of pros in the days before professional pool. He especially like to play and watch straight pool, competing in or attending nearly every competition in the New York City area. Something about seeing ball after ball after ball fall into the pocket hypnotized him. And then in 1959, he bought a local Brooklyn pool hall with his friend Frank McGown. While running the pool hall he began to repair cues and then make cues for friends as gifts. This was the first intersection of his gift of carpentry and his love of pool. Soon, other regulars began asking him to make cues for them. Then, at some point in the early sixties, his name, and his cues, began circulating around the professional billiards community.

By 1964, Balabushka was making cue full time, which he continued to do until his death in 1975. His cues departed from the ornate pieces of art that were just becoming popular and instead focused on making high performance hand-crafted cues. He pioneered the use of Irish linen wraps, using straight grain maple instead of curly or birdseye maple in the butt, and checkered rings just above the wrap now known as Balabushka rings, as well as many other cue features nearly universally used today.

George Balabushka died in 1975, a tragic loss not just to his family and friends but to the billiards community as a whole. But his legend lives on in the many improvements he made to cue manufacturing as well as many other places. The famous scene in the 1986 sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money where Tom Cruise is given a beautiful cue by Paul Newman and told, “It’s a Balabushka,” made the name Balabushka synonymous with top quality pool cues. And David Forman, founder of Adam Custom Cues, licensed the name Balabushka from George’s family and now manufactures a line of cues under the Balabushka name as a memorial to one of the greatest figures in modern billiards.

 

 

Balabushka Pool Cues
Each cue has George
Balabushka's signature.

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