Post #247168 by teaKEY on Sun, Aug 6, 2006 9:00 AM

Good luck

Tiki is the first that I have seriously collected. It sucks because I'm in the wrong state, started five years too late, and no one I know personal even likes tiki. I try to buy the best mugs I can, because I know about them but no one I know would even know the different.
I for the most part, like to buy the new mugs. They are the vintage to tomorrow. ex. Like the Crazy Al mugs that Tiki Farm did, I don't have, sold out form the farm before I started collecting. Maybe because, that are sold out, I want them more.

The first tiki mug that I owned was one that I made. (I bet few could say that) And that mug is actually the best mug that I have ever held and probably will ever hold. I probably bought the next ones to compare the differences. And then I bought more because I wanted people to see that their were even better ones than the last one I bought. No one really notices. I think it boils down to that it gives me something to do. But where I was getting at is I would rather buy the new mugs for a couple of good reasons.
Buying vintage mugs, I always wonder if they were stolen from the bar thirty years ago. If you buy something stolen, its almost as bad as stealing it yourself. Thats why I almost don't think that I would want a Chin-tiki mug. Plus, you are paying someone would didn't pay for it.
Buying new, I know where it came form and I know that I am in no way paying for it more than it as ever sold.
I know that the mind who made the mug lives in the same time, and faces a lot of the same issues in the world at the time as I do. They are living artist that could use the money to farther their craft or art and tiki. It you look at it as art, the new mugs are pretty cheap. MAybe not for everyone, and its not, but what it. And thats a good thing.
I don't want a say common vintage mug (enter name here), that is ten dollars with ten dollar shipping and handling. Think about this. That mug was two dollars or free with a drink years ago. Its five times the price someone payed. Shipping, which is probably just a energy waste on our planet is added into the price making the mug really twenty dollars and who really wants that. But say the mug came from California. It was bought and changed hands many times and made it into the winter state of Michigan. That cool, it cool that the mug probably doesn't/shouldn't belong here, but it does. California has too many of them anyways, this little guy made it. Tiki is spreading, all is good. Now it finds its way onto Ebay. Two minutes left and its going to Tennessee. Three seconds left and now, back to California.
I think the stuff that we make on TC is where its really at. No shipping if we make it and keep it. The feelings we had when we made it, and the connection to the maker and the buyer who knows the maker. It was made (Something that is cool that wasn't here yesterday) Thats the best part.

All mugs probably find their true owner in the end just like all the water finds its way back into the ocean.