Post #690072 by Ragbag Comics on Tue, Aug 13, 2013 11:01 PM

This bad boy just landed in the mail today...

It is most definitely identical to the Maori War Clubs Oceanic Arts still sells in their catalog (measurements and all the carving are the same) and the wear and patina to it tell me it is DEFINITELY old.

TikiVato found three of them a few months back, out West in California, that were posted here in Tiki Finds if you flip back a few pages.

Finding something like this here in the Midwest, on the other hand, is a real challenge, and it's a good bet any OA stuff that does surface was bought to use in a bar or restaurant (and with larger, less ship-able stuff like this, it was likely one of the tonier chains, since Witco, Orchids of Hawaii, Johnson Products, etc all had facilities in Chicago and were MUCH more affordable to decorate with if you were in the central states.)

The holes drilled through it tell me it was most likely bolted to a wall in a Tiki Palace once upon a time... so it gets me to thinking...(and poking around the internet...)

I received it from a suburb of Cincinnati, and the only Tiki joint I can find having existed for any length of time in that area is the Kon-Tiki at the Sheraton-Gibson Hotel.

So THIS photo is a blow-up of a post card that Dustycajun posted from the Cincy Kon-Tiki in "Locating Tiki" several years back:

...er... this is the only postcard from the place I can find on the internet, and what's that shape hanging on the back wall??

Looks like an OA Maori War Club to me!

The guy I bought it from said he'd had it for awhile, and got if from a friend of his who picked it up years ago at an "estate sale or something" but he really didn't know anything more about it.

Think it could be the same OA War Club from the postcard?

I don't suppose I'll ever know for sure, but it's pretty cool to think about!

--Pete