Post #444896 by Mai Tai on Sat, Apr 4, 2009 6:12 PM

On 2009-04-03 17:05, surfalaia wrote:

Anyone have any guesses on potential sources for this guy?

I'm pretty damn sure that it came from a Trader Vic's. Maybe Bellevue, or that one that was floated across the channel on a barge and now resides in B.C. Canada. I have one pretty much exactly like it that I picked up at the Trader Vic's warehouse sale last year. Exact same size, both height and diameter wise, exact same carving, exact same style of wood. It was most likely carved somewhere around 1965 in the South Pacific, perhaps by Kier Fullmer's uncle - he did a lot of the carvings back then.

I can't readily find a pic of mine, but here's one that Midnite picked up at the warehouse sale. It's very similar, the carvings are just a little deeper:

Here it is again, it's the one on the ground:

And he thinks it's either mahagony or teak..........dude :wink:

It's 100% solid teak. :wink: Kier recommended that we coat the tikis in teak oil, which would help condition the wood and keep them from drying out, so that's what we did in the above pics. The tikis soaked up several cans of it, and now look brand new, plus they are permanently weatherproofed since they are now inside.

Enjoy your tiki, it's a great score! Is it carved all the way down, or is the bottom half uncarved? The bottom three feet of mine is uncarved. I'll try to post a pic of it later.