Share your Papua New Guinea pieces - Collecting Tiki

S swizzle Tiki Socialite Melbourne,Australia Joined: Jun 03, 2007 Posts: 1460	S swizzle Posted posted on Sat, Oct 12, 2024 2:17 AM in reply to Prikli Pear You mention that all three of the pieces you posted are 'tourist' pieces with the first one being confirmed by an appraiser. Unless you have acquired the piece from a museum, a great grandparent who was an adventurer and collected them personally 100yrs ago, or a private collector who acquired them the same way, then just about EVERYTHING that Tikiphiles decorate their homes with are tourist pieces. This is a book i have that was printed in 1972. And here are a couple of excerpts from it in the introduction. Note the mention of the year 1945. That was the year that commercial air travel really took off, so people were traveling to places like PNG and able to bring items back themselves in their luggage. Or if you were well off you could afford to have larger pieces shipped home. The tribes of PNG were making items for trade long before that when Westerners first discovered them and took interest in their art and artifacts and they found that they could trade them and were happy to do so because if something really didn't hold any significant spiritual meaning then they could just make another one. After 1945 when there was a significant influx of visitors that's when they really ramped up production specifically for the 'tourist trade' and started making more smaller pieces that could fit in suitcases, like masks as mentioned in the book above, so the ages you give for each piece are most likely quite accurate. I agree that the last piece (which is very cool by the way) does look significantly older than the others, but by how much, who knows. Without having 100% confirmed proof of when any of this stuff was collected then we can only guess at how old they are. [ Edited by swizzle on 2024-10-12 02:20:34 ]

You mention that all three of the pieces you posted are 'tourist' pieces with the first one being confirmed by an appraiser. Unless you have acquired the piece from a museum, a great grandparent who was an adventurer and collected them personally 100yrs ago, or a private collector who acquired them the same way, then just about EVERYTHING that Tikiphiles decorate their homes with are tourist pieces.

This is a book i have that was printed in 1972.

And here are a couple of excerpts from it in the introduction.

Note the mention of the year 1945. That was the year that commercial air travel really took off, so people were traveling to places like PNG and able to bring items back themselves in their luggage. Or if you were well off you could afford to have larger pieces shipped home. The tribes of PNG were making items for trade long before that when Westerners first discovered them and took interest in their art and artifacts and they found that they could trade them and were happy to do so because if something really didn't hold any significant spiritual meaning then they could just make another one.

After 1945 when there was a significant influx of visitors that's when they really ramped up production specifically for the 'tourist trade' and started making more smaller pieces that could fit in suitcases, like masks as mentioned in the book above, so the ages you give for each piece are most likely quite accurate. I agree that the last piece (which is very cool by the way) does look significantly older than the others, but by how much, who knows. Without having 100% confirmed proof of when any of this stuff was collected then we can only guess at how old they are.

[ Edited by swizzle on 2024-10-12 02:20:34 ]

Post #814063 by swizzle on Sat, Oct 12, 2024 2:17 AM