Post #77964 by Basement Kahuna on Wed, Feb 25, 2004 7:30 PM

Personally I never, ever, ever say the word "tiki" out in the field. That is a buzz word that a dealer will remember and search query on e-bay and (boom!) all of a sudden they are onto the whole blessed thing and anything tiki either will get run there or become the jewel of the nile in that dealer's eyes from there on out. I'm not in this to educate anyone, especially not your average modern-day amatuerish or potentially paranoid (of giving up a penny on anything) dealer....I've been in the antiques and collectibles game in one form or another for 22 years, and anything I know about anything is info pretty hard fought and won. I give out as a rule the bare minimum information required to draw in my quarry. I benefit way more from them not knowing what tiki is; that's why it's stayed pretty good around here and the batting averages are still pretty high. Usually I'll just say "Hawaiian stuff" or "Hawaiian restaurant stuff" and it works pretty good, as most average joes kind of associate it all with Hawaii.