Post #52294 by houseinprogress on Tue, Sep 23, 2003 6:55 PM

Sorry to intrude...we think tiki is totally cool, but it doesn't quite go with the 1920's bungalow look going on.

Anyway, we bought this house and the owner left a ton of stuff. And friends and neighbors are interested in buying things. Most things are easy enough to research but the tiki stuff is hard. I asked them to make me an offer but they want me to give them a price and I want to be completely fair...so how do I value these things? Is there a book on vintage Tiki collectibles that gives values or something?

I think the stuff I'm thinking of would be "tiki". We have about 5 huge and wide woven grass and bamboo shades that roll up and 3 mugs made of bamboo that are carved (kind of kitschy) and a box full of mint woven grass coasters from Bermuda, etc. The family owned the house for 3 generations and kept EVERYTHING. So, along with the cool stuff, a bunch of dirt and rocks too. Not so fun.

Amazingly, the cool stuff is pretty well preserved. (They have unopened boxes of things they bought. They never let sunlight in the house. Etc.) Although they didn't keep up the house, they used their millions (yup, they were loaded) to travel all over the world. A couple of times. Since the 1900's. It is very overwhelming in here. I went through their papers first and travel records. It looks like they went to Bermuda in the 30's (during the Depression. We even have photos from that trip.) They were in Jamaica and Hawaii in the '50's. They were in Asia and Polynesia from the 1920's through the 60's...so that is less helpful. I really am having to research those things.

Any help you can give would be great. We are just trying to get everything off of 2 of the floors so we can work on the plumbing and electric. That would be a big start. Thanks.