Post #392610 by Mai Tai on Wed, Jul 9, 2008 1:06 AM

Bigbro makes a good point that a lot of these floats were made strictly for decorative purposes, and were never meant to be in the ocean. They can still be vintage though. Most of those are thin, like interior glass globe fixture thinness, but have cool vintage colors like orange or gold or frost aqua blue. A lot of those didn't even have rope, but instead have a "netting" made out of rattan or similar material. Here's a bunch of vintage ones from the Trader Vic's warehouse sale.

Here's a cool vintage one that Midnite Tiki picked up. Note the cool orange/gold color, and the rattan netting.

This last one is also from the Trader Vic's warehouse sale, and it's a brand new repro. You can really tell when you look at it up close, the glass is thinner and not of very good quality for something that would have been in the ocean. Check out that lousy pontil too. Also, the rope is some super cheapo lousy quality stuff that looks more like twine, rather than good quality with lots of intricate knots, or even that rattan stuff. (No offense intended to the person who bought this, though!).

I agree that you should see if you can get them to lower the price on yours by $10 to $20 bucks. If not, then it's still a good deal, and you don't have to worry about paying for shipping and insurance, or risk it being broken while in transit. Since it's thick and heavy, I'm guessing it was a real float, but used for decorative purposes only. You should ask them if they know where it came from, and if it was from any restaurant or bar. And show us pics! :D