Post #96851 by tiki410 on Thu, Jun 17, 2004 11:54 AM

I thought I would share this story with respect to collecting and it should be in the finds topic but thought I would include here.

So I and my wife having nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon decided to hit a few flea markets around town. After walking through one place we were getting ready to leave and there on a shelf is a mug that shows up every now and then in New Orleans.

I pull it down and it is a mess. Someone decided to convert it into a planter. They drilled a hole in the back bottom. There is some cork around the edge on the inside that was glued. It had a chunk broken off and re-glued. And to top it off the thing had brown painted over its origin. Finally it stunk.

The saleslady offers $5. I tell her no way, it’s a piece of garbage (and an insult to the mug itself). I also did not have any cash on me at the time. So we go out to the car. I look at my wife and I ask her if she as some money on her. She only had $3. I asked for it and tell her that I will send it to Calif and let them put it out of its misery. (I think there is someone that has some kind of ceremony around the destruction of messed up mugs that I read on TC before). The sales lady is on the phone trying to order lunch, I offer her $2 she said fine and I walk out with it.

The mug sits there for a while and I decided to give it a bath and and to try to clean it up. I got this far before I realized what I really had.

No its not in the best condition. I probably put in a total of about 4 hours trying to clean it up. I have been able to remove almost all the of the glue from inside the rim. The paint is off completely. And it shines pretty good. I just tell people that this Tiki Bob represents the later Elvis.

I hope you enjoyed my story.

[ Edited by: tiki410 on 2004-06-17 11:55 ]