Post #704791 by uncle trav on Thu, Jan 16, 2014 2:23 PM

Many of the big name restaurants back in the hay day of tiki gave away a bunch of free swag. Hawaii Kai in NYC offered ever thin for Westwood teapots to tiki table lighters as free items at one time or another. Many offered a signature drink in a mug that was yours to keep with the price of the cocktail. I believe Trader Vic may have been the first owner to have a gift shop offering mugs and souvenirs for sale even the Mai Kai and the Kahiki had them early on. I know many of the items in the wild were most likely field collected back in the day but I find it hard to believe a scorpion bowl could fit in a ladies formal evening pocketbook in 1962. A bunch of the vintage tiki items we are just finding now are from places that have been closed for fifty years or more in some cases. Small hoards of unused mug and menus have been found from long gone tiki palaces from time to time. Mugs and ephemera survived years and traveled all over the place only to surface in the most unlikely places.