Post #148421 by bigbrotiki on Tue, Mar 22, 2005 12:39 PM

They are fine carvings, and they might be somewhat vintage, but they are very common tourist Tikis.

This style has been carved for decades, mainly by members of one family (Gecko, aren't they from Tonga?), and used on wooden canes, masks and tons of little 6 to 36 inch statues. They are to Hawaii what Mai Tiki pineapple heads are to Florida. I saw the first guy carving them at the International Marketplace, and since they have popped up at Pacific Island festivals on the mainland also, so it is hard to say HOW vintage these are. Lately I noticed the usual dark hardwood seems to have gotten more expensive and the carvers are using "unclean" dark wood with light strains in it, so these might be up to 25 years old, but not more.

There is nothing wrong with these per se, I just always feel it is a shame that since there are such infinite possibilities to be creative in Tiki carving, the chance to make each Tiki unique is wasted by cranking out the same design over and over. I was a little surprised that Doug Nason used one of these for the opening page of his Barracuda article, he has much better pieces in his personal collection.