Post #472749 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Wed, Jul 29, 2009 12:41 PM

Formikahini is right - I do have a skewed sense of value because I am spoiled rotten out here in California. Doctor Z and I will sometimes even pass up a Leilani (gasp!) for 50 cents at a garage sale, (though in general, we hate to leave tikis in the wild).

And I agree with David - if your primary concern is with value and efficiency of time, then you would waste a lot more than $30 in gas to find these at garage sales and thrift stores and you'll probably never find eight Leilanis all in one place.

But if you have a bit of the Collector in your blood, then The Hunt is everything! You can put no monetary value on the the thrill of finding these things in the wild. My friend Doctor Z and I "waste" a good six hours every Saturday at garage and estate sales just hunting for old things we collect, and it's my favorite part of the week. (The fact that we're also hunting for stuff to sell on eBay makes it a little more socially acceptable :) ). From what I know of Formikahini and Tiki David, I suspect they're inveterate hunters themselves. Why else would Formikahini have doubles and triples of these lps unless she found some fun in re-discovering each one when she came across it at a thrift store.

Of course, you can also "hunt" on eBay and Craigslist. But as I'm sure Tiki David will tell you, some of the thrill of this kind of hunt is when you find rare things for a bargain or come across something mis-labeled or hidden and you're astute enough to take advantage of it. I'm guessing he gets a little more pleasure from finding a Witco Tiki on Craigslist for $20 then he does for $200.

And so here I've gone and spoiled it for you, tikitees, buy discounting these records and tikis as "pretty common". Shame on me! :wink: I've been collecting this stuff for over a decade now and I forget what it's like to be new to this field, so forgive me. In fact, seeing that "Bahia" lp in the listing got me nostalgic. That was the very first Exotica album I ever found at a garage sale, back in the early 1990s, and it blew my mind as much as the first Hendrix lp I ever listened to. I thought I had "re-discovered" this whole new genre of atmospheric jungle-music on my own and immediately made cassette copies of it and sent them to all of my friends, (a few of whom "got it" like me, but most of whom immediately taped over it with REM.)

So my altered advice is: Definitely don't be ashamed to buy this lot to give you a good start to a collection - they're priced more than fair - but keep learning about tiki mugs and the Exotica records from this site, and most of all - have fun hunting them.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2009-07-29 12:49 ]