Post #21463 by fatuhiva on Fri, Jan 31, 2003 2:35 AM

Here's the dope on your mugs-

The aloha showroom mug is a cool one. I think they changed the name at some point down the road, as I've found a few in various locales with white paint over the "aloha showroom" text on the foot. Attempts made to scrape this paint off proved it to be the strongest bonding ceramic paint I've ever come across. It IS paint, but it simply WON'T come off.. anyway, thats a very nice mug.

Re: the tiki bob mugs- they did not use paint anywhere on the real TB's. It is all coloring under the glaze. There are a number of techniques on how they did that, but I won't get into it. Suffice it to say all the Tiki-Bob mugs (except for the yellow maori mugs) won't have any paint flaking off.. HOWEVER, the tiki-bob style mug from the Bali Hai in New Orleans is a weird exception. That mug is actually white-glazed, with black glazed eyes, and then a brown cold paint applied over the body. In many cases, that brown paint will start flaking off. Later on they seemed to have wised up and gone the same route as the Tiki Bob mugs. Nonetheless, the older Bali Hai (ponchartrain beach, new orleans) tiki-bob style mugs, are very cool as they are "jumbo sized" and sorta different, yet very attractive in execution (when not flaking)

The mug you have, though, is most likely a hobby-mug. I have a few like you describe.. somehow, I don't know why, the tiki-bob design turns up alot as a ceramics-class type mug. Usually the red flag for that is a mono-chromatic motif.. basically just dunked in one color of glaze.. although recently there have been some cool ones on ebay that were glazed in the same whiteface/colored trunk style, but were in pink, lime green, blue, etc. The pink ones had little eyelashes added.. Tiki Belles :)

Flip your mug over and look for a completely flat bottom, perhaps with a slight seam-bump running through the center. That is a hobby-mug sign.

Also look for incised lettering and little pinprick marks in the glaze.. those are from the kiln stilts and also indicate a hobby mug.

The fact that yours has the lei on it, and has a white bottom is a little puzzling, though. Is the bottom white CLAY, or a white glaze? Its possible that the mug was made of porcelain, then dunked in brown.. if you can post pics, go for it and we'll see if we can't unravel the mystery

[ Edited by: fatuhiva on 2003-01-31 02:38 ]