Post #63871 by fatuhiva on Mon, Dec 8, 2003 6:18 PM

Thanks for the compliments everyone :)

I have been collecting tikis for about 10 years now. It all started when I met my wife and she had this really nice thatched "hut" rattan shelf hanging on the wall in her room. On this shelf were some tiki mugs and I walked over and said "wow these are neat tikis!" She had a few cool items like a small Toby head, the Bumatay style JPco mug (BOT pg250) and the one that started her collection, a matte-black moai from The Tikis (I still have that mug in the collection- the poor guy is full of hairlines and dripping with candlewax) To impress her, I would look for mugs to fill out her shelf when we would go thrifting together. After we started dating, we decided to try our hand at being vintage dealers and picked at garage sales/fleas/estate sales religously all day, every weekend, for years. This was way before Ebay, and also when mugs were usually 25c to $1 anywhere you went. There were a few retro/antique dealers around town who would mark the tikis they found up to a whopping $3 or $4 and I would always buy them to save myself some legwork.

Then my wife got a job that required alot of travelling and I often went along with her to pick other towns. Found alot of good stuff that way.

Finally Ebay came along and luckily I found out about it pretty early. Duke and I were having a good time recounting stories about the infancy of Ebay- for quite awhile, he was about the only other person on there that I recall specifically buying tikis on a regular basis. We used to get in bidding wars and rack the rare mugs up to gasp 8 to 10 bucks! Back then, if you typed in "Tiki" on Ebay, you'd get about 13 entries- we remember it took a few days sometimes for anything new to get posted, and then we'd both be salivating.

He was cracking me up with this story about how he thought I was f*#%ing insane the day I ran a mug up to $20. HAHA oh the good old days. Duke and I did some trading after awhile, and I finally got to meet him years later just this last weekend.. it was a really fun time (His book TikiQuest is excellent by the way.. if you don't have it, definitely pick it up.)

Of course, it wasn't long until Ebay became a household word, the tiki stuff started to really sprout up, and so did the prices. I still see things I've never seen before, and I know now I will never have anywhere near a "complete" collection. I also on occasion still bust out the checkbook for things I really like, but thankfully, it's not too often anymore.

So I would say 1/2 the collection was found in the "wild" (Duke has kept a much more impressive record on this regard), 3/8's was gathered during the early ebay "freeforall" years, and the rest were picked up during the mania we have all come to love hehehe. I still do pick up a tiki in the wild every once in a while, although I don't get out picking as much as I should these days.

To answer the questions, that's not a bike seat, its a tiki-lamp laying on it's side. The blue tiki set is un-named set that had little mini shots similar in size to the westwood jiggers, and the big one is a decanter. I also had a lamp made from one of those decanters, but I gave it to the little girl next door who is doing her room in a tropical theme, and wanted a tiki. You can still find this set on Ebay from time to time, and its not too uncommon in the field.

The thatching I got from ACE thatch in Central Florida, and also some from Safari Thatch in Ft. Lauderdale, which is where the split-bamboo trimming will come from. If I were on the west coast I would probably use Oceanic Arts. ACE Thatch will UPS rolls to your house- I did that recently to save myself a 5 hour roundtrip drive to their place in BFE, Florida.

Lastly, no need for earthquake putty here, except for wobbly uneven bottoms. Just hurricanes- so if you see a Cat 5 rumble through Melbourne Beach, observe a moment of silence for all the mugs laid to waste :)

I am however considering mounting plexiglass in front of the shelves so I won't have to cringe when the tikiroom gets crowded during a party, our new boy starts walking, grabbing and throwing, or a bunch of kids come over for Shirley Temples :)

[ Edited by: fatuhiva on 2003-12-08 18:46 ]