Prices on mugs dropping, what gives? - General Tiki

L lunavideogames Grand Member (5 years) San Diego Joined: May 09, 2012 Posts: 1878	L lunavideogames Posted posted on Thu, Feb 4, 2016 12:24 PM On 2016-02-03 22:20, ErichTroudt wrote: Shift in priorities played a big part too. In the early days, tiki was all about collecting...matchbooks, mugs, menus, actual pieces from the restaurants. Then came a HUGE emphasis on drinking. It became all about the drinks, mixing, this rum, blah blah blah. People spending way more money on the drink side instead of decorations or collecting. From my point of view tiki has ALWAYS been about drinking. Am I wrong in saying that without drinking there would be no tiki as it is today? Bamboo Ben once said (not in so many words) that tiki bars make their money by selling booze. Without rum and tiki drinks, tiki would have never kicked off into a mainlanders view of island life. Certainly we would have no tiki mugs. There are very few examples of tiki places that do not center around drinks, Tiki Gardens is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. There are only a few examples of people making tiki rooms in their houses or at their jobs that don't center around bars, that is why the section of TC is called "Home Tiki Bars." When I joined TC, I didn't expect to ever start posting. Chat rooms were something that I never liked to do. I didn't use any other social media either. My mug collecting got so out of hand :wink: that I signed up for TC so that I could get mugs I couldn't find anywhere else. No one was ever rude to me, but it did take some time for people to warm up to me. Now I have made countless friends from this forum and I check it all the time. I really got into rum collecting as well. I generally have 100+ bottles of rum at my house these days. I liked the "What are you drinking right now" thread by Bongo Bungalow so much that I made an Instagram account dedicated to just that (thirstythursdayssd). That never meant that it was all about the booze for me. I have tikis in my bar from famous and not so famous carvers. I have scoured the country and the internets to find the right pieces of art for my tiki bar. I have lamps and art from defunct tiki bars in my home bar. My wife and I like the art of tiki so much that it is already spilling out of our bar and into our home. I currently have over 300 tiki mugs and not enough space for them. I mostly collect the newer mugs and not the vintage. Old tiki mugs from resturants that were closed before I was born just don't hold the same kind of feel to me as the newer ones do. I like and certainly want some of the rare vintage mugs, but my mug collecting is slowing way down. I would have loved to own that Forbidden Island volcano bowl that was just on ebay, but it was not in my budget at the time. I don't think tiki is in any jeopardy of going away anytime soon, but I think it is in danger of geting watered down and diluted. If more and more bars start to concentrate on tiki drinks with no other aspects, we will loose what makes these bars tiki to us. That is why TC is still essential, we need to know the history so that we can teach what tiki means to us. If we sit back and watch a bunch of bars open with no decor and ultra-sweet umbrella drinks, we are going to have another decline. It happened in the past, how do we stop the same thing from happening again?

On 2016-02-03 22:20, ErichTroudt wrote:

Shift in priorities played a big part too. In the early days, tiki was all about collecting...matchbooks, mugs, menus, actual pieces from the restaurants. Then came a HUGE emphasis on drinking. It became all about the drinks, mixing, this rum, blah blah blah. People spending way more money on the drink side instead of decorations or collecting.

From my point of view tiki has ALWAYS been about drinking. Am I wrong in saying that without drinking there would be no tiki as it is today? Bamboo Ben once said (not in so many words) that tiki bars make their money by selling booze. Without rum and tiki drinks, tiki would have never kicked off into a mainlanders view of island life. Certainly we would have no tiki mugs. There are very few examples of tiki places that do not center around drinks, Tiki Gardens is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. There are only a few examples of people making tiki rooms in their houses or at their jobs that don't center around bars, that is why the section of TC is called "Home Tiki Bars."

When I joined TC, I didn't expect to ever start posting. Chat rooms were something that I never liked to do. I didn't use any other social media either. My mug collecting got so out of hand :wink: that I signed up for TC so that I could get mugs I couldn't find anywhere else. No one was ever rude to me, but it did take some time for people to warm up to me. Now I have made countless friends from this forum and I check it all the time.

I really got into rum collecting as well. I generally have 100+ bottles of rum at my house these days. I liked the "What are you drinking right now" thread by Bongo Bungalow so much that I made an Instagram account dedicated to just that (thirstythursdayssd). That never meant that it was all about the booze for me. I have tikis in my bar from famous and not so famous carvers. I have scoured the country and the internets to find the right pieces of art for my tiki bar. I have lamps and art from defunct tiki bars in my home bar. My wife and I like the art of tiki so much that it is already spilling out of our bar and into our home.

I currently have over 300 tiki mugs and not enough space for them. I mostly collect the newer mugs and not the vintage. Old tiki mugs from resturants that were closed before I was born just don't hold the same kind of feel to me as the newer ones do. I like and certainly want some of the rare vintage mugs, but my mug collecting is slowing way down. I would have loved to own that Forbidden Island volcano bowl that was just on ebay, but it was not in my budget at the time.

I don't think tiki is in any jeopardy of going away anytime soon, but I think it is in danger of geting watered down and diluted. If more and more bars start to concentrate on tiki drinks with no other aspects, we will loose what makes these bars tiki to us. That is why TC is still essential, we need to know the history so that we can teach what tiki means to us. If we sit back and watch a bunch of bars open with no decor and ultra-sweet umbrella drinks, we are going to have another decline. It happened in the past, how do we stop the same thing from happening again?

Post #758399 by lunavideogames on Thu, Feb 4, 2016 12:24 PM