Post #139070 by Kono on Wed, Feb 2, 2005 7:30 PM

On 2005-02-02 12:20, Hale Tiki wrote:
I just checked all of it out, and sweet mother of mercy that sucks. Talk about some serious BS.

Don't get too distraught, Hale Tiki. Sven recently bought a Toscano so it must not bother him that much. I think he'd just appreciate a little credit, especially for them quoting his book.

Sven, I'm pretty sure that both pieces above are made by the same Chinese source. A lady at Big Lots said that they did have some of the large ones (her description 100% matched the Old Time Pottery tiki) but sold out quickly. Did they steal the design from Toscano? Perhaps, but maybe its the same manufacturer that Toscano commissioned and they decided to do some similar product. The little statuary collection of which these were a part, also included the vaguely (very vaguely) moai-ish heads (see above) and some Olmec or Toltec type heads. I don't think Old Time Pottery is the type of place to commission a product (maybe) and I know Big Lots isn't. We're not talking about a store like Target.

Sven, I'd recommend to venture out to Big Lots and get one of the small ones. It's very nicely made and would be a nice complement to your Toscano. If you've never been to Big Lots then it may be a bit of culture shock for you. Big Lots buys stuff that doesn't sell elsewhere and sells it cheap. This includes items that are overstock, old and expired (like old vitamins), items that are likely counterfeit or are knock offs, non-US food stuffs of suspect origin. I purchased some packages of ramen noodles at Big Lots and the first package made me vomit. I almost NEVER vomit. I figured I was just sick. Ate the second package at a later date and vomitted again! How can ramen noodles make you vomit??

You should contact Design Toscano and see if you can fish out of them how they came to sell those two "Gods" statues. Obviously they knew of your book but I wonder if they designed the statues themselves or commissioned the designs or if they simply purchased an existing product. This site also sold those items claiming them to be an exclusive but the fact that they also quote your book means that they either purchased them from Toscano (do they wholesale?) or purchased them from the same source that Toscano did and that source supplied the descriptive text that borrowed from the BoT. It would be interesting to know the journey of initial idea to design to manufacturer to retail that these items took. Probably run into Rattiki in the PI somewhere along that journey. :wink:

I'm telling you people, that small one is NICE. Well worth getting. All this typing...I need a Mai Tai...