Getting a pool table for the basement rec room/bar/man cave isn’t as easy as you’d think. By comparison, the kegerator was easy peasy. A brand new 8′ slate pool table is expensive! But, I wouldn’t want one that has some sort of wooden or composite table below the felt that would warp if the humidity changes down there. It’s enough trouble keeping them level without having a table top that could warp, and really make shots wonky. Slate’s heavy, but it never warps.
I grew up with a bumper pool table in my parents’ basement. Bumper pool is no challenge. My best friend had a real pool table in her parents’ basement. That was much more fun. We were warned “Don’t scatch the green!” but were allowed to use it. My dad told me about the difference between snooker and pool, because he used to play both in college, but I’m not looking to play snooker.
Buy one new, or used, in really good shape? I have several options. One of them returned our email to say we could come over to see it in person tomorrow evening. They’re only a couple of miles away from us.
The price is right, it appears to be in really good shape, and comes with all the accessories. If we decide we like it, and buy it, we’ll have to hire a guy experienced in moving pool tables to get it out of their basement and into ours. Add $200-250 (?) to the cost, for the mover. Still, if we decide we want it, the combined cost is a shitload cheaper than buying a new one. It’s an AMF Play Master, which is right up there with a Brunswick.
We’ll see what happens. As of now, it looks like a really sweet candidate. And, no, I wouldn’t jerk the owners around if I weren’t seriously interested.
Okay, the professional pool table mover got back to us with a cost quote of $300. That probably doesn’t include recovering it with new felt, which he can also do, so add maybe another $100 for that. It’s still worth it, and I can have it redone in classic billiard green to replace the blue that’s currently on it. Given everything that’s involved in disassembling a slate pool table, moving it from one house to another, and reassembling it correctly, it’s a very fair price.
I’ll cheap out on a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them. As The Bottle Rockets say, “a thousand dollar car won’t get you very far.” OTOH, this high quality used pool table, plus the moving expenses for it, won’t cost me much more than that, and it’ll probably last longer than either one of us will, if we don’t abuse it. It’s not the sort of pool table that would become a family heirloom piece of furniture, but it’s not hideous looking, either. It’d be right at home in any pool hall, or biker bar — or in our basement rec room.
Alrighty! We worked out a deal for the pool table. At this point, it all depends upon when we can schedule the professional pool table mover. The seller knows that it can’t happen before Monday, and he won’t get paid for it until the day it’s disassembled from his basement and carted away. But, the moment it leaves his house, he gets paid his asking price in cash. It really is a fair price.
Nobody’s getting gypped in this transaction.
When I went back up the basement stairs after checking out the pool table, the guy’s itty bitty scruffy old girl of a dog was there on the top stair, doing watch dog duty. Either one of my cats is bigger than she is. I paused, called her “sweetheart,” let her sniff me, and gave her a scratch under her jaw. All was cool. She let me pass, and hubby and I skedaddled from the guy’s house. Once the deal was done, there was no reason to take up any more of each other’s time.
Pickup and delivery is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. It’s not going to take as long as I originally expected. Part of that is because it only has to be moved a couple of miles as the crow flies, and maybe five by road. The guy we hired to move it has been moving pool tables for 30+ years, and knows exactly what he’s doing. It wouldn’t surprise me if he used to be a sales rep for one of the manufacturers. The current felt is in really good shape, and the mover thinks it might be reusable. Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t matter.