Powerglide – trash or treasure

Almost everything we own becomes trash.  Material possessions don’t always last.  Those things we don’t want are thrown out or donated.  It’s up to us to decide what’s trash or treasure.

When we die, everything we own suddenly belongs to the people nominated in our will.  It’s up to them to decide the trash from the treasure.

There is a store in the Geebung industrial estate call the Tip Shop.  It sells stuff people throw away or donate.  The warehouse is big.  It’s full of things people didn’t want but somebody else might needs.

 

Books, furniture, toys, exercise equipment, sporting goods, clothes, kitchen goods, office ware and electrical stuff.  It’s all second hand.  Or third hand.  A lot of it people don’t look twice at most of it.

 

I go there occasionally when I’m feeling idle, mostly for sport books but I have bought toys, a cricket bat for Angus and a few beer glasses.

 

About two years ago my brother Nick was wandering the Tip Shop with his kids and found a pool cue in a leather pouch.  A one-piece, the cue was branded Powerglide.  It cost him four dollars.

 

He sent me a picture of it.  It looked old, the colour faded but otherwise in excellent condition.   A few days later he brought it to my house.  It felt good to hold but it had no tip.

 

‘I looked up Powerglide on the internet and found a website but it doesn’t tell me anything about this cue,’ Nick said.

 

The leather pouch was badged Heiron and Smith Billiards.  The name Bill McKenzie had been written in marker pen on the pouch.

 

A metal badge attached to the base of the cue read Powerglide, Red Diamond, Imperial Billiard Table Co, PTY LTD Sydney.

 

I’ve never held a cue with a metal badge on the base.  It had been looked after, obviously kept in the pouch when it wasn’t being used.

 

Nick asked me to re-tip it with the tip clamp he found about five years ago in a second hand store near Strathpine.  I had the equipment but had never done it.

 

There is a billiards shop in the next suburb.  The employee looked like a hipster.  Thick black beard, white short-sleeved shirt tucked in to black jeans.  He was on the phone when I walked in and ignored me for a few minutes before ending the call.  I showed him the Powerglide.  He looked at it like it was an interruption.

 

‘Know anything about this?’ I asked.

 

‘It’s a pool cue without a tip.’  Hipster sarcasm, delivered deadpan with irritation.

 

My eyes delivered plenty of irritation.  ‘What about its history?  I want to know when it was made.  I can’t find this cue on the internet.’

 

‘No idea.’  He shrugged.  ‘They still make cues.’  He took me to a rack and showed me the Powerglide cues in stock.  Prices started at $180.

 

‘What’s this one worth?

 

He shrugged and looked at Nick’s cue without interest. ‘In that condition you’d probably get $150 for it.’

 

‘How much to put a tip on?’

 

He shook his head.  ‘Do it yourself,’ he said.  ‘I don’t do that.’  He must’ve noticed my expression.  ‘It’ll cost 12 bucks if I do it so do it yourself.’

 

I wandered the showroom while he took a dozen tips from a tiny drawer.

 

‘What glue do I use?’

 

‘Araldite or superglue.’  He put the tips in a zip-lock bag.  ‘Put glue on the tip and cue then stand it on its head.’

 

I didn’t mention the tip clamp.  Driving home, I thought about disinterest, wondering if it was an act, wondering if I’d ever been served by someone who could care less.

 

I re-tipped the Powerglide cue and my AC/DC cue in anticipation of the weekend, when my mates were over.

 

We played pool for hours.

 

The Powerglide cue isn’t a twenty dollar pub cue that had been knocked around.  It was perfect.  My mates fawned over it.

 

Adam quickly dubbed the cue St Nick, after my brother.  Everyone wanted to use it.  It felt perfectly balanced.  We all played inspired pool.

 

A few days later I opened Powerglide’s website.  The company is based in England.  The website showed me dozens of cues but there was no historical information about Nick’s cue.

 

I told Nick to email the company.  He did, describing the cue, attaching photos and asking for information.

 

John Carney, Powerglide’s marketing manager, sent a response.

 

It’s great to see images of some of these old cues and I only wish I could give you more information about it.

 

My guess is that it dates back to the 1970s.  Powerglide was started by Rex Williams back in 1968 and with the inscription on the badge I am guessing that this was a special edition of the cue that was made for Imperial but I am guessing that it would’ve taken a few years to become established enough and to get enough of a reputation before they made specials for people.

 

The badging is typical of cues that were made by Powerglide around that time.  The iconic Connoisseur came with a red metal badge originally, I believe.

 

Sorry I can’t be of more help.

 

John Carney shouldn’t be sorry.  He was helpful.  The cue might’ve been 40 years old.  The badge wasn’t red, but it had the word red in the inscription.  And it was a special, designed by Rex Williams.

 

I had to know who Rex Williams was.  Turns out he was a professional snooker and billiards player who turned professional in 1951.

 

In 1964 and 1965, he lost the World Snooker Championship to John Pulman.  He found more success at billiards, winning the World Professional Billiards Championship seven times between 1968 and 1983.

 

As an administrator, Williams helped establish the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.  He was chairman twice, from 1968 to 1987 and 1997 to 1999.  He also commentated on snooker and billiards during the 1980s.

 

As John Carney wrote in his email, Williams sent a shipment of cues to the Imperial Billiard Table Company in Sydney.  The company doesn’t seem to exist anymore, though there is an American company of the same name.

 

Heiron and Smith provided the pouch.  They still have stores in Melbourne and Sydney, making pool tables and selling accessories.  Their specialty is restoring and selling antique pool tables.

 

That is the history of the cue.

 

The history of Bill McKenzie, beyond the cue, is a mystery.  I think he’s dead because a man who still plays wouldn’t give up a cue like that.  I’d like to think Bill was good on the table, that he lived in Melbourne or Sydney before moving to Queensland.

 

I hope he had a table at home and rarely lost.  Maybe he taught his kids to play and let his mates use the cue.

 

The Powerglide is aged treasure.  Someone thought it was trash.  It ended up in the Tip Shop at Geebung in its sheath, with a four dollar price tag.

 

It ended up with its former life restored…

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