Burton Spain was one of the most influential cue makers ever. His influence on cue making is far reaching, and is as evident now as it was 30 years ago. As information on cue making in the 1960s and 1970s becomes more readily available, the importance of Burton Spain's contribution becomes increasingly evident. This short biography will give you a glimpse of Burton Spain the cue maker, the person, and the MENSA member! His legacy lives on in the work of Joel Hercek, who was his friend and student until his death in 1994.
Burton Spain Biography
Burton Spain was a Chicago native who enjoyed the game of pool. In 1964, at the age of 24, he began playing at Howard-Paulina Billiards in the city. It was there that he met and became friends with Craig Peterson, who was making cues at the age of 18. At Craig's shop, early in 1965, Burton saw a Titlist forearm that was split down the middle, and became fascinated in the construction of the splice. He could see how it was made, and convinced himself that he could make a splice, also. Burton started going to a public wood-working shop at a Chicago park every evening, and, before long, he made his first four point spliced blank. He kept turning it down, trying to make it perfect. When he was done, he had a blank that was thinner than a shaft, and only thirteen inches long. But he knew he could master blank making. On June 1, 1965, he rented a storefront in Chicago and set out to make cues. Very soon, he was making blanks for his cues that were superior to what was available from Brunswick. At this time some custom cue makers did not make their own spliced blanks, they purchased them from Brunswick. When "Tex" Fitzgerald and "Whitey" Stovall, of Ace Cue Service in Chicago saw that Burton was making his own high-quality blanks, they wanted to buy them. Burton had intended to use them only in his own cues, so he did not know what to say. Soon afterwards, Tex went down to the Jansco Jamboree tournament in Johnson City, He told some cue makers about what Burton was doing and soon they wanted blanks too. Before long, Burton was selling blanks to some of the top cue makers of the time, including Frank Paradise, Gordon Hart, Craig Petersen, and George Balabushka.
In June of 1970 Burton had the opportunity to buy and restore some Graystone Row houses in one of the better neighborhoods in Chicago. He sold his equipment to John Davis, a tool and die maker who had been helping him for a few years. John moved the business to a building that he owned on Division Street in Chicago. In 1974, Burton returned as a partner, and bought back the business and building a couple of years later. Burton kept his shop at this location until the end of his career.
Burton had experimented with several joint designs for his own cues over the years, and in 1977, he found one he stuck with. Although cues made before 1977 may feature a variety of joints, Burton Spain cues made after this time have a unique joint with the screw in the shaft. In the late '70s, Burton called Craig Peterson who had been living in California for years and convinced him to come back to Chicago to help him. Craig worked off and on for Burton for the next several years. Through the late seventies to mid-eighties, Burton continued to make blanks for other cue makers along with making cues of his own. In 1987, Burton stopped all cue work, except for servicing cues that he had already made and went to school to learn computer programming. Burton finished school in 1988, and although he quickly discovered that he did not like computer programming, he was unable to return to serious cue work until 1991. When he did, he set out to make full spliced blanks that were to his satisfaction. Although his early blanks featured a full splice, they were not long enough to continue all the way into the butt sleeve. This was because the ebony in the points and lower section of the blanks were to heavy and to expensive. Burton solved this problem in 1992 with an ingenious full spliced blank featuring ebony points that were spliced into maple for the handle area. For blanks with points lighter than ebony, the lower splice simply continued to the butt sleeve. Burton Spain was truly a gifted cue maker, infact he has been called a cue maker’s cue maker in the industry. Burton was inducted into the ACA Cuemakers Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the International Cuemakers Association Hall of Fame in 2005. Building cues however was not Burton’s only gift, Burton had a very high IQ and was a member of Mensa and the ISPE (International Society of Philosophical Enquiry) To be a member of ISPE your IQ must must into the top .1% of the population. In 1982 during a mid-month meeting of Mensa, Burton gave a speech titled “Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Billiard Cues And Were Afraid I’d Tell You” The following is the text of that speech:
When I was a teen-ager, one of my haunts was Sheridan Recreation, a bowling alley and pool hall in the heart of Uptown – sleazy, down-and-out Uptown. Back in 1920 or so, when the building was new, it had been called Leffingwell’s and it had been large and rather grand. In the late 1950’s, it was still large, but time had eroded much of the
grandeur. To give you an idea: the billiard rooms were on the third floor and entered by a staircase that came from the street to offices on the second floor, then on to the
billiards on the third. In that rough and ready neighborhood it was impossible to leave that downstairs door open after the offices had closed and so, in the evening and on the week-end, the pool and billiard players went through the bowling alley and up an inside staircase to the third floor, and from there through the only room that connected the landing with the billiard rooms. That connecting room was one of the foulest smelling men’s toilets in God’s creation – and it gave you a pretty good idea of what you were getting into. At least it gave you an idea of what the poolroom was like, but beyond that was a separate room where three-cushion billiards was played. Played by old-timers – men who had been boys when Willie Hoppe, Jake Schaefer and Welker Cochran were boys, men who had learned the game when this had been Leffingwell’s and the grandeur had been intact. Now the game had been in long decline, and there were few such as myself just learning the game new. But I didn’t mind. I was charmed by those old-timers, Runyonesque as they were. Steeped in a lifetime of billiard room etiquette with their ritual phrases, worn and polished banter, sly witticisms – I thought them grand. My special heroes were the men who played best – performed the sleight -of- hand that makes ivory billiard balls do magic. As the royalty of this ancient kingdom, they had special privileges. They could swagger; they could speak small sarcasms; they could carry their own private two-piece cues. Cues with style and elegance; four prong inlaid cues; cues with mother-of-pearl designs and cues with ivory butt plates. Cues engraved with the owner’s name, and cues bearing the name of some prior owner, some Johnny Layton or Otto Reisalt, legendary names they were. Cues made of Ebony and Brazilian Rosewood by the great Herman Rambow. Cues in tooled leather cases with small brass nameplates. Magic instruments no less than those created by Stradivarius and Guarnerius long ago in Cremona. Years passed from that first introduction to billiards, and I presumed to own a cue or two of my own in that time. But mine were new-bought and meager. The cues that had fired my magination had been made in the glory days of billiards. They had been made at a time when the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. could boast that their consumption of maple for cues was so great that if would deplete the open market, and for that reason, they had bought their own forest. Now quoting from their 1923 catalog: “Following this purchase, we erected a saw-mill and lumber camp, consisting of a little city, including dwelling-houses, general store, boarding house, a hotel for superintendents, repair shops, standard railroad locomotives, freight cars for logging many miles of railroad track, steam derrick and innumerable incidentals, such as horses, oxen, log-truck and steam launch.” Now those were times – times when the making of billiard cues got the respect it deserved. Well, in 1965 my father gave me some money to get started. I rented a store, bought some equipment and began to teach myself what I needed to know. It was hard going for a long time, but everything is good now although I still own neither forest nor oxen, either one.
Burton Spain Died in 1994 at the age of 54 from complications of Cancer. Before Burt passed, he sold his cuemaking business to Chicago area cuemaker Joel Hercek. Along with the sale of the equipment, Burton stayed on as long as he could to train Joel in all aspects of Cue making. Burton Spain Truly was a cuemaker’s cue maker.
Burton Spain was a Chicago native who enjoyed the game of pool. In 1964, at the age of 24, he began playing at Howard-Paulina Billiards in the city. It was there that he met and became friends with Craig Peterson, who was making cues at the age of 18. At Craig's shop, early in 1965, Burton saw a Titlist forearm that was split down the middle, and became fascinated in the construction of the splice. He could see how it was made, and convinced himself that he could make a splice, also. Burton started going to a public wood-working shop at a Chicago park every evening, and, before long, he made his first four point spliced blank. He kept turning it down, trying to make it perfect. When he was done, he had a blank that was thinner than a shaft, and only thirteen inches long. But he knew he could master blank making. On June 1, 1965, he rented a storefront in Chicago and set out to make cues. Very soon, he was making blanks for his cues that were superior to what was available from Brunswick. At this time some custom cue makers did not make their own spliced blanks, they purchased them from Brunswick. When "Tex" Fitzgerald and "Whitey" Stovall, of Ace Cue Service in Chicago saw that Burton was making his own high-quality blanks, they wanted to buy them. Burton had intended to use them only in his own cues, so he did not know what to say. Soon afterwards, Tex went down to the Jansco Jamboree tournament in Johnson City, He told some cue makers about what Burton was doing and soon they wanted blanks too. Before long, Burton was selling blanks to some of the top cue makers of the time, including Frank Paradise, Gordon Hart, Craig Petersen, and George Balabushka.
In June of 1970 Burton had the opportunity to buy and restore some Graystone Row houses in one of the better neighborhoods in Chicago. He sold his equipment to John Davis, a tool and die maker who had been helping him for a few years. John moved the business to a building that he owned on Division Street in Chicago. In 1974, Burton returned as a partner, and bought back the business and building a couple of years later. Burton kept his shop at this location until the end of his career.
Burton had experimented with several joint designs for his own cues over the years, and in 1977, he found one he stuck with. Although cues made before 1977 may feature a variety of joints, Burton Spain cues made after this time have a unique joint with the screw in the shaft. In the late '70s, Burton called Craig Peterson who had been living in California for years and convinced him to come back to Chicago to help him. Craig worked off and on for Burton for the next several years. Through the late seventies to mid-eighties, Burton continued to make blanks for other cue makers along with making cues of his own. In 1987, Burton stopped all cue work, except for servicing cues that he had already made and went to school to learn computer programming. Burton finished school in 1988, and although he quickly discovered that he did not like computer programming, he was unable to return to serious cue work until 1991. When he did, he set out to make full spliced blanks that were to his satisfaction. Although his early blanks featured a full splice, they were not long enough to continue all the way into the butt sleeve. This was because the ebony in the points and lower section of the blanks were to heavy and to expensive. Burton solved this problem in 1992 with an ingenious full spliced blank featuring ebony points that were spliced into maple for the handle area. For blanks with points lighter than ebony, the lower splice simply continued to the butt sleeve. Burton Spain was truly a gifted cue maker, infact he has been called a cue maker’s cue maker in the industry. Burton was inducted into the ACA Cuemakers Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the International Cuemakers Association Hall of Fame in 2005. Building cues however was not Burton’s only gift, Burton had a very high IQ and was a member of Mensa and the ISPE (International Society of Philosophical Enquiry) To be a member of ISPE your IQ must must into the top .1% of the population. In 1982 during a mid-month meeting of Mensa, Burton gave a speech titled “Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Billiard Cues And Were Afraid I’d Tell You” The following is the text of that speech:
When I was a teen-ager, one of my haunts was Sheridan Recreation, a bowling alley and pool hall in the heart of Uptown – sleazy, down-and-out Uptown. Back in 1920 or so, when the building was new, it had been called Leffingwell’s and it had been large and rather grand. In the late 1950’s, it was still large, but time had eroded much of the
grandeur. To give you an idea: the billiard rooms were on the third floor and entered by a staircase that came from the street to offices on the second floor, then on to the
billiards on the third. In that rough and ready neighborhood it was impossible to leave that downstairs door open after the offices had closed and so, in the evening and on the week-end, the pool and billiard players went through the bowling alley and up an inside staircase to the third floor, and from there through the only room that connected the landing with the billiard rooms. That connecting room was one of the foulest smelling men’s toilets in God’s creation – and it gave you a pretty good idea of what you were getting into. At least it gave you an idea of what the poolroom was like, but beyond that was a separate room where three-cushion billiards was played. Played by old-timers – men who had been boys when Willie Hoppe, Jake Schaefer and Welker Cochran were boys, men who had learned the game when this had been Leffingwell’s and the grandeur had been intact. Now the game had been in long decline, and there were few such as myself just learning the game new. But I didn’t mind. I was charmed by those old-timers, Runyonesque as they were. Steeped in a lifetime of billiard room etiquette with their ritual phrases, worn and polished banter, sly witticisms – I thought them grand. My special heroes were the men who played best – performed the sleight -of- hand that makes ivory billiard balls do magic. As the royalty of this ancient kingdom, they had special privileges. They could swagger; they could speak small sarcasms; they could carry their own private two-piece cues. Cues with style and elegance; four prong inlaid cues; cues with mother-of-pearl designs and cues with ivory butt plates. Cues engraved with the owner’s name, and cues bearing the name of some prior owner, some Johnny Layton or Otto Reisalt, legendary names they were. Cues made of Ebony and Brazilian Rosewood by the great Herman Rambow. Cues in tooled leather cases with small brass nameplates. Magic instruments no less than those created by Stradivarius and Guarnerius long ago in Cremona. Years passed from that first introduction to billiards, and I presumed to own a cue or two of my own in that time. But mine were new-bought and meager. The cues that had fired my magination had been made in the glory days of billiards. They had been made at a time when the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. could boast that their consumption of maple for cues was so great that if would deplete the open market, and for that reason, they had bought their own forest. Now quoting from their 1923 catalog: “Following this purchase, we erected a saw-mill and lumber camp, consisting of a little city, including dwelling-houses, general store, boarding house, a hotel for superintendents, repair shops, standard railroad locomotives, freight cars for logging many miles of railroad track, steam derrick and innumerable incidentals, such as horses, oxen, log-truck and steam launch.” Now those were times – times when the making of billiard cues got the respect it deserved. Well, in 1965 my father gave me some money to get started. I rented a store, bought some equipment and began to teach myself what I needed to know. It was hard going for a long time, but everything is good now although I still own neither forest nor oxen, either one.
Burton Spain Died in 1994 at the age of 54 from complications of Cancer. Before Burt passed, he sold his cuemaking business to Chicago area cuemaker Joel Hercek. Along with the sale of the equipment, Burton stayed on as long as he could to train Joel in all aspects of Cue making. Burton Spain Truly was a cuemaker’s cue maker.
