Post #758297 by Tiki Toli on Wed, Feb 3, 2016 8:01 AM

Much to my wife’s dismay, I spend way too much time and money on Ebay looking for all things tiki but mostly mugs. Over the last 4 or so months I have noticed some really interesting trends. First is a search I do almost every day. That search is a keyword search on tiki cross referenced with anything that has an active bid on it. Until recently at any one time the number of hits on that search would be in the 300-350 range.
Starting late fall/early winter last year, I started seeing a significant drop in the number of active bids. It seems to have stabled out at about 140-180 active bids. In the 4 years I have been doing this, I have never seen a sustained drop like this. It is also worth noting that the number of items posted with Tiki in the description has remained about the same.

I have also seen a significant drop in price of the items themselves. To use mugs as an example I have seen the price on vintage mugs drop anywhere from 30-50%. I’ve picked up some really nice pieces over these last couple of months that shocked me based on what I paid. For example a Mauna Loa pigeon, drum, and standard tiki mug for 500 dollars. Not too long ago that was 700-800 dollars. I picked up a Steve Crane Bird bowl for a 135, once again early last year that was a 230-300 item. Most recently a Steve’s rum barrel for 95 bucks when those are normally in the 100-150 range.

These are just some of my observations. Obviously I’m thrilled I am picking up wish list items at what I think are great prices. However it does concern me. Is this something limited to the vintage mug market due to saturation or something similar? Or is this due to something else like a dwindling interest in tiki which I don’t think is the case. I’m really curious what other collectors think. I would really be interested in what our crafters and events coordinators are seeing as well.