Post #306934 by Koolau on Wed, May 16, 2007 11:41 PM

Here in Hawaii the thrift stores are sometimes fruitful - but I generally only find Daga mugs and miscellaneous Coco Joe's items. Usually the stores are heavily picked - there are people who spend the entire day at a store waiting for new items to be stocked. Those of us with jobs are out competed.

That being said, most of those people hanging out at the thrift store all day are dealers at the weekend flea market and swap meet. I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, but establishing relationships with them is key. Once they know you're after tiki, they'll buy it when they see it, intending to sell it to you on Sunday.

Part of establishing that relationship with the regular dealers is generally paying them what they are asking - if it's too much, I'll put the mug down and thank them. Typically, they'll offer a lower price. If they're just plain asking confiscatory prices, I really don't want to do business with them anyway.

I used to buy a lot of mugs off eBay, but cost with shipping is rapidly approaching $20 per mug, and that's just more than I want to pay for an Orchids of Hawaii or OMC. Gotta be special for an eBay purchase these days.