Post #161881 by Unkle John on Thu, May 26, 2005 10:28 PM

Two years ago, wahine and I had just got married. We had planned a big trip down to the TX coast for tiki searching and beachcombing. Well we had to change our plans when a hurricane changed directions and headed right to Galveston. So we went out to the Lubbock area to visit family who couldn't attend the wedding and hit up Roswell. We stopped off at this little dirt flea market, just to see what they had. I stepped into this building that used to be a gas station and looked right at a Mr. Bali Hai (with the lid) in MINT condition! $1.00.

When I was in high school, my buddies and I would go to this small town movie thater down the road from our houses. just down the side walk was this really cool Chinese restraunt with a cool round door and no windows. As you walked down the short hall the first thing you saw was this makeshift tiki bar. Well a year ago or so my wahine and I decided to go eat there (after remembering that they had a bar). We went in and to my surprise, the bar was gone. The shelf remained, bet the bar was dry. After eating our dinner I asked the lady at the counter what happened. She told me that Applebee's sucked them dry of bar patrons and they shut the bar down and gave away all the mugs. Sad, I turned to leave after paying and she said "Wait, you can have this." And she produced the last mug that was behind the counter. For free.

This last one is pretty good too. During my lunch break I used to frequent "Soul's Harbor", this huge junk store. Junk store meaning they pile everything in these bins and you dig. Well I was looking around and I spotted this Al Harrington mug. Thrilled because it was the first mug I had found with a tiki on it at this store and even better, Harringon is last name. 5 cents.

The same store also spawned these two finds in one day: $1.00 for both finds.