Post #398324 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Fri, Aug 1, 2008 7:50 PM

Z Gallerie has their resin-cast of a taxidermy sea turtle on sale for $49.95, (originally $89.95). At that price I picked up two of them.

These are good-sized sea turtles, measuring just over 2' long. The cast is a nice one and captures all the detail of the original taxidermy turtle, and because it's a resin cast, it's very light and it's completely legal to own.

It has a hanger on the back so that it can hang on the wall of your tiki bar, but it would also look good suspended from a ceiling by wires as if it was swimming.

The paint job on the head and flippers is fine, but I'm going to re-paint the shell on mine to make it look a bit more authentic.

I've seen sea turtles like this at several old vintage tiki bars. Sam's Seafood had a real one languishing in their basement that they brought out before they closed a few years ago and hung near the bar. Not sure if it's still there in its Kona incarnation. Taxidermy fish, sea turtles, lobsters, etc are some of my favorite items in a tiki bar. Growing up near Marineland and the old Cabrillo Beach museum, I loved the way these dusty old sea creatures added ambiance to the nautical decor in those places.

Z Gallerie also has a nice resin cast of a giant crocodile skull for $49.95 that would look great given a Papua-New Guinea makeover (painted with tribal symbols and decorated with hemp cord and old shells maybe). They also had resin casts of giant clamshells that could be used for a tiki-bar waterfall. The shells were closer to $100 each but may go on sale too.

Pick a turtle up if you can. This is a great price, and since they're on clearance I'm not sure how much longer they'll be available.

Sabu

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2008-08-01 19:51 ]