The last two days we have been down to Havant near Portsmouth , to our selling client who wanted us to advertise the Family’s Rare Oak BCE Westbury snooker table with steel cushions , rumoured but no receipt or provenance of being used at a final in the 80’s involving Steve Davies .
Not many Oak ones where produced and I seem to remember a couple of finals of various snooker competitions on TV in the 1980’s / early 90’s that did use an Oak BCE table in the Final .
Just to show how rare it is to find one in oak , I have only worked on one and that is this one , yet I have worked on hundreds of Mahogany ones in the past .
We dismantled and at the same time re-clothed the cushions to save time on our delivery day the next day .
before the slates where placed on top .
Note the straight edge 6ft Stabila digital level and on top an Engineers level .
this table was an early BCE type and had no Adjustable muntin’s ( slate bearers ) but has a thicker slate bed , that had been hand floated , a sign that it could have been used in a final as most BCE tables used slates out of the crate unfinished and not hand floated and would have been around 1/8th thinner slate .
Some may have chosen a match cloth , but would not have got the years wear out of the cloth .
this one sits between Match and thick Club cloth .
Not that most people would know the difference , it is well known that BCE thin leathers can last only weeks , before showing signs of splitting where the ball hits .
The old set had two pocket plates that had leather’s split and discoloured pocket nets .
have a look at the tables in your own club to see if there are any deep V cut, or ballooning of the cloth or even wrinkles .
It takes years to train a Billiard fitter to do this , it is not learnt overnight .
BCE tables where used as TV tournament final table by the WPBSA from 1982 to 1992 , to find if this table was used in a final I think a certain amount of looking at photos of finals and videos to see if an oak one can be found being used .
The deceased father in law of the seller bought the table from Hargreaves in the early to mid 1980’s and it was understood it was a table used in a final that Steve Davies was one of the participants in that final , without the lost receipt , and any certificate of provenance , so the selling client can only say Rumoured to be used in .
My clients room is very large and has an annex room plus office space and a toilet , this building is in the garden of his house in Norfolk .
BCE tables are not the easiest tables to fit , most have bolts missing around the pockets as they do not align easy and lazy fitters leave them out or the manufacture of them meant the bolt hole did not align , this one had every pocket bolt in place .
but they take some aligning up to fit .
we arrived around 10 am , and the table was finished by 4.00 pm
We did not rush the job took the occasional tea and lunch breaks , and made sure the table was fitted correctly .
BCE Westbury and Riley Aristocrat tables with steel match play cushions sell for good money , they are two of the most wanted tables requested by buying clients , but to get those higher prices they must have the steel cushions , I do get a few selling clients claiming to have steel cushions only to find they have the normal club wood cushions .
A quick photo of the table by email of the pocket and cushion area , and I can inform them if it has steel cushions or not .
Condition is also crucial to getting decent prices for these sort of tables and Rarity , such as Oak finished tables rather than the common Mahogany ones .
99% of modern table’s are within the legal limit for this vehicle .
GCL billiards like to keep within the law for load weights , and will not transport a table if too heavy .
We also do not do stairs anymore , having been in the Billiard fitting trade since 1976 , my back is now too fragile to carry slates up and down stairs , and a couple of years ago decided no more stairs and only , Ground floor Dismantle and load , to ground floor unload and install , only a couple of steps is our rule now .
we can ramp that and wheel the slates up or down 2 steps .
I have done my fair share of lifting slates up and down stairs , let the younger fitters do it now , but do not be surprised if you find even young fitters will not take on this work .
I now turn all stair work down , with the rule of no more than two steps .
