Post #12055 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Sun, Oct 27, 2002 12:01 PM

When I was just starting to collect tiki about eight years ago, I came across an estate-sale in Lomita where there were a matched pair of 5-foot tree-fern tikis lying together on a blanket. They had been sitting by this guy's swimming pool since the 1960s. I eagerly asked him how much he was selling them for but he said, "Sorry, I just sold them to someone else about five minutes ago". I was crushed. Especially when I found out he had sold them for ten dollars a piece! I practically wept leaving that sale. I don't think I've ever fully recovered since, and I've never found vintage carved wooden tikis at a garage sale in the eight years since then. I think that single event fuels my garage, estate-sale mania. I know that if I'm hunting every weekend, I'll find one someday.

Sabu