What was the first Tiki mug? - Collecting Tiki

N nzbungalow Member Joined: Sep 23, 2014 Posts: 4	N nzbungalow Posted posted on Sun, Oct 19, 2014 4:29 PM bigbrotiki, i too like a good argument and I do so like your choice of words. Working as an architectural historian I have enjoyed watching the unlikely turn out to be the actuality. And as a collector of New Zealand pottery I have identified some very unlikely influences, including, pertinently, an early-1960s-designed Maori tiki mug, reproduced in 1971 by Crown Lynn, and again in the 1980s by Parker Pottery, which I believe to be a remodelling of the Efcco Ku mug, yet which clearly depicts a carved Maori face. The Crown Lynn one can be seen in my ooga mooga collection and the Parker one in that of Paipo. Atomic Tiki Punk, yes this mug is not a tiki mug in the definition of your sub-culture but is a tiki mug nevertheless, and I believe it is a significant one as I am yet to be made aware of any Polynesian-themed ceramic pre-dating this that makes the shift from a piece of ceramic with themed transfers to one where the Polynesian theme becomes the body of the piece. As ceramics were not part of the pre-contact Polynesian culture, this could be the first ceramic mug from a Polynesian country (New Zealand), possibly the world, to depict a tiki face in its shape. I look forward to seeing something earlier. Until that appears, your only chance of excluding its influence is to produce a tiki-faced tiki mug in wood or bamboo that predates it. Produce either of those (ceramic or wood) and I will concede that the possibility of influence diminishes. BTW. I have yet to see the Wharetana mug defined as a coffee or tea mug by Crown Lynn who routinely used definers tea, coffee, or beer, in their mug shape descriptions.

bigbrotiki, i too like a good argument and I do so like your choice of words. Working as an architectural historian I have enjoyed watching the unlikely turn out to be the actuality. And as a collector of New Zealand pottery I have identified some very unlikely influences, including, pertinently, an early-1960s-designed Maori tiki mug, reproduced in 1971 by Crown Lynn, and again in the 1980s by Parker Pottery, which I believe to be a remodelling of the Efcco Ku mug, yet which clearly depicts a carved Maori face. The Crown Lynn one can be seen in my ooga mooga collection and the Parker one in that of Paipo.

Atomic Tiki Punk, yes this mug is not a tiki mug in the definition of your sub-culture but is a tiki mug nevertheless, and I believe it is a significant one as I am yet to be made aware of any Polynesian-themed ceramic pre-dating this that makes the shift from a piece of ceramic with themed transfers to one where the Polynesian theme becomes the body of the piece.

As ceramics were not part of the pre-contact Polynesian culture, this could be the first ceramic mug from a Polynesian country (New Zealand), possibly the world, to depict a tiki face in its shape. I look forward to seeing something earlier. Until that appears, your only chance of excluding its influence is to produce a tiki-faced tiki mug in wood or bamboo that predates it. Produce either of those (ceramic or wood) and I will concede that the possibility of influence diminishes.

BTW. I have yet to see the Wharetana mug defined as a coffee or tea mug by Crown Lynn who routinely used definers tea, coffee, or beer, in their mug shape descriptions.

Post #729952 by nzbungalow on Sun, Oct 19, 2014 4:29 PM