Post #773244 by Ragbag Comics on Tue, Feb 21, 2017 5:26 PM

On the mid-century cannibal-tip, let's not forget the fabulous "Cannibal Pot" mug from the Mauna Loa in Detroit:

(photo swiped from a random google search)

...always been a favorite design of mine.

And lest we forget fabled Ren Clark severed head mug, which will probably always be my Tiki mug holy grail:

(again, photo swiped from the internet... this belongs to somebody on Ooga Mooga, that lucky devil...)

I think skulls were part of that whole "deep dark jungle," creepy, forbidden vibe the vintage Tiki palaces were going for.

Skip, I think that shorter skull mug in your photo was used a a number of places - I've seen it with a few different markings. It was made by OMC and was part of their standard catalog, but is one of the rarer vintage skull mug designs out there.

In my experience, the "Long Jaw" Vic's skull made by Tepco and that OMC skull in your photo are the two toughest vintage skull designs to come by that I've seen. The kinda more lumpy, rounded skull used by Trader Vic's in later years, straight up to just a couple years ago (and at the Hawaii Kai and others years ago) is a bit more common. The small side-handled skull mug Kahiki used is most common (obviously the Kahiki branded ones are rarer, but still pretty easily had) - Dynasty actually still manufactures a version of it today.

I'm sure there are other vintage skull mugs out there. I have one kinda goofy pirate one from the historic Pirate's House bar in Savannah, GA...

There have been a bunch of iterations of this... they've been using variations on the same branded skull mug since at least the 1980's, probably long before (the structure is one of the oldest bars in the US, and it's been in its current iteration since the 1940's.)

I'm always on the lookout... I'm a big monster nerd (amongst Tiki and other varieties of nerd) so I'm always interested in vintage stuff with a spooky/Halloween-y/monster tie-in.

-Pete