Check out my new lamps!

Mele Kalikimaka to me! I have a lamp fetish and just added these 4 to my triple digit collection. I have one just like the sea horse lamp but it was in such bad shape I took it apart to use the pieces (still a "to be done" project). These will stay in tact and just be rewired. The sea horse lamp I have, came from a restaurant (per seller) and was super greasy. I'm not sure where these are from but I asked the seller for info. with no response yet.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4029&item=743206024&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2001&item=743200394&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1405&item=742282933&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13864&item=742282915&rd=1

The last two are my favorites. Any info. on where these came from would be greatly appreciated. I can't wait to get them! Oh, and sorry Chef but I am a lamp fiend!

Awesome, you have over 100 beachcomber lamps like these?, or, do you collect all kinds of lamps?. Do you have any pictures?. very good find.
Al

I wish all my lamps were like these. Most of my lamps are plastic swags. Spun plastic and rock lamps (like the one in "That 70's Show")as well as pole lamps and Danish Modern lamps are the majority of my collection. My son's room is Sponge Bob meets Mid-century modern and he has 7 spun ball swag lamps (clear and blue) which match the giant bubbles and drips panted on his ceiling.
These will be hung with everything from puffer fish, shells, cheesy plastic, and of course my Witco firedancers swag. Now I just hope my house won't burn down.
Yea, I need to get myself a digital camera! Hopefully after the holidays, I'll be able to post some pictures.

Laney, you are getting these at a steal, girl! Those babys go foor a hundred plus, usually. I don't know who is making these now, but generally all production of such lamps has seized since Sea & Jungle and Benson's Imports went out of business.

As anyone who has trying to build his own Tiki bar can attest, these lamps are almost harder to find than Tikis. In most bars these "dustcatchers" were the first thing to be thrown in the trash when modernizing. Congrats!

Here's another subject that I wish I would have had more space for in the Book o'....

Laney,

Ooooooo......that starfish lamp is way cool.
Great find.

Alnshely wrote:
Awesome, you have over 100 beachcomber lamps like these?, or, do you collect all kinds of lamps?.

OH MY GOD!!!! There are so many lamps at her place, that you would literally need glasses to wear if all of them were turned on! Actually, the collection is way, way cool.
One of my favorites that I've seen so far (and I've seen alot of hers and not even the entire collection) is the Fire Dancers lamp. I've never seen a picture of one, or even known of anyone owning one except for Laney. I've agreed to rewire them (gulp! how many did you say you have?), and unless she gets a digital soon, I probably should take a picture of each as they are getting done...at least for her insurance company. She can then post them for you to enjoy!

On a side note, for those of you who have wanted to get an old lamp, but were afraid to dive into rewiring them, it's actually really easy. A bit time consuming, but easy. Also, you can get the lamp REALLY clean as you take it apart and reassemble them.

My 2 coconuts worth.

SugarCaddyDaddy

[ Edited by: sugarcaddydaddy on 2002-12-09 09:51 ]

Laney-
Right on!
Those lamps are so great!
I am aware of your fetish for cool & tacky lamps, I see your name on alot of wacky lamps & swags & often we bid on the same things.
When are we going to see some pics?
BTW, I was bummed that I forgot to bid on this set, I was REALLY "feelin" these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4056&item=742621801&rd=1

Oh No! Competition! What's your ebay name-not lightingwacko? That pair is cool but not tacky enough for me. I'm going to have to weed out some lamps soon.
I know there has been a thread about this guy before and I, too, got my lamps well packed and am very happy with them. I bought 6 before, some for gifts. My ex boyfriend's favorite fish is the blowfish (get your mind out of the gutter) so he got three. I got one for Sugarcadi but he dosen't want it-oh well. These will come soon and they are a bargan as I've seen fish alone this size go for around $40. Watch for future auctions.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3898&item=743447697&rd=1

I'm not competition, dont worry!
I have a bit of a fetish for the spun & chunky plastic lamps also.
my ebay name is "EZcheez"
I usually look more than I buy.
Most of the time I just bookmark alot of interesting lamps to see what they sell for.
Your name shows up on the cool stuff alot!

The Beachcomber Lamps are a big part of the "Tiki Style". I'm getting ready to make 6 new big lights for the Lagoon Room. I've been researching Beachcomber lights for a while and I thought I'd share some photos of these lamps and some pics of the lamps I've collected.

I think this is a TV

Photo courtesy of "The BooK of Tiki" by Sven Kirsten, Tashen Press

Great collection at Oceanic Arts.

More OA

Islands Room

I found this lamp for $35.00 in Carson City. The Tiki Trader was selling them for $300.00 Notice the Tiki flicker lamps in the background.

I made this one.

I love these old Swag Lamps

I made these too.

Salad bowl pole lamp.

I got a pair of these at the Oceanside swap meet, $10.00

I love this lamp. I know some of this isn't that Tiki, But, it fits in the bar

Oh and since I was taking pics in the bar today, Tiki Hula gave me this Bali Hai menu. I framed it and put it up, Thanks Mike.

Al-oha,
That Tapa Round one you made is what everyone is looking for. I get all sorts of people who want "close to the ceiling fixtures". Are you producing them? Want referels?? I'll send em your way.

Laney, I just got my puffer light from the same guy, they are really nice, but I had one problem. My wiring was lose so when I plug it in ,it blew my circut breaker and sparked inside the fish. A quick electrical tape job and he was fine though. The other problem is that if the light ever burns out it will be nearly impossible to change the bulb since its sewn in. DrZ got one also and he didnt have any problems, but just check the connections before you plug it in.

Yea, I checked all mine when I got them and did notice that they would be hard to change. I guess there will be surgery needed in the future. I can live with that for the price I paid.
Al, next time you are at Ocianic Arts with your camera please take a picture of the glass float lamp with the puffer inside it. I can almost see it in one of your shots, behind the area with all the showcases. That is my favorite lamp and I wish someone could figure out how to make those! Great work on your tapa lamp. I too want to start making lamps (would save me $$) I collect bags of shells every year at Martha's Vineyard and plan to make funky swags someday.

When the weather warms up (for swimming here)we'll have to plan an all day home tiki bar tour of Orange County (we're pretty spread out) I think it would be quite an event. We could even give out prizes, like tackiest, best collection of mugs, most creative, least clutter, etc. Anyone interested??

Here's my latest lamp project... after finding a hanging lamp on clearance at Oceanic Arts, I knew it had potential. I popped out the holographic plastic panels and replaced with pieces of tapa cloth. I may add some shells soon, not sure how to finish it off yet.

Before:

after:

I bought another lamp there that I haven't worked on yet... it features panels with fake stained glass butterflies and flowers! I'll post pics of that when I fix that problem...
:tiki:

TraderPup,
Great work on that lamp. Cool modification. I can't wait to see what you do with the big one you bought when we were at Oceanic Arts. I like laney's Idea of the Home Tiki Bar Tour, on the next OC Crawl we should stop at some home bars. I'll get a pic of that puffer lamp on tuesday, I know the one
Mahalo,
Al

[ Edited by: Alnshely on 2002-12-11 23:16 ]

Traderpup, that's a huge improvement -- good eye, and good job. That tapa cloth looks like it's always been there. I bet the lamp feels much more comfortable now, it probably felt pretty silly in that ridiculous red get-up.

Laney - "check out my new lamps!". Is that what you kids are calling 'em these days?

Nope, mine are vintage and I'm proud of it!
ZAZZZZZ!

Vintage lamps, huh? They must hang pretty low, then.....
:tiki:

Are the highbeams on?

Yep, They are wrinkled, stretch marked, and hang over my belly, but pierced....
Hey if 70's clothes are vintage, so are my body parts. True originals not an "antique cove original"
Boy, you guys really DO need sex for Christmas!
Let's get back to the real topic,
perky, sweet, perfect...beachcomber lamps.

Laney, that blow fish-in-the-float lamp at OA is one of my faves, too, that's why I singled it out in the Hawaiian Airlines video. I also like the "shaded" floats with the Chinese hat on it. Another type I really dig are the ones they have at the Royal Hawaiian, those floats with a nautical still life in them: Beach sand at the bottom, with starfish and driftwood and shells stuck in it.
The first lamp I ever got from OA was a jug light on a wood base supended with rope from a piece of driftwood, with a fishing net cork on top and surrounded by plastic bamboo. A nice detail is the fact that they sprayglued sand on the driftwood to make it look like just beachcombed. That was back when they still let go off their display models...

I was lucky to have been into this early enough to get ahold of some restaurant fixtures, I fished 5 resin fisnet floats out of the dumpster at Kelbo's after they had turned into a strip club and got two lamps from "The Tikis". One of my faves I found in a antique store, the "fishtrap" split bamboo with three resin floats in it, fish netting, plastic vines and an aged toucan sitting on it. It is hard to display because of it's size (almost 6 feet long) and the low ceilings in my house.
The most elusive classic Tiki supper club light I still would like to find are those giant turtle shells with coloured resin inlays. VERY politically incorrect, but once a staple of every Tiki bar worth it's salt. At Ren Clark's supposedly "more than 100 giant lighted turtle shells are suspended from the the gallery which leads from Ren Clark's Polynesian Village to the pool area of the Western Hills Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas."
Polynesian Pop obviously played a part in making the giant turtle an endangered species.
Ask OA if they have an extra copy of their old "Polynesian Lighting" catalog, it's unfortunately only in black & white, but the variety of concepts back then is just great.

Tahitian Lanai?

I dreamt of Laney's lamps last night.... (get your mind out of the gutter!). I dreamt I was in a store FILLED with shell lamps, where the shells and bamboo made up elaborate dioramas of outriggers and tiki huts and villages. I got very excited until I saw the price tag - $370 bucks!

That's odd, I dreamt of Laney's lamps last night too (hey, look! I found a nickle in the gutter!).

On 2002-12-09 23:32, bamboo ben wrote:
Al-oha,
That Tapa Round one you made is what everyone is looking for.

hey Shelley ~ do you have instructions for making that lampshade? or do you sell them??

lamp envious,
elicia

On 2002-12-13 10:16, Tiki_Bong wrote:
That's odd, I dreamt of Laney's lamps last night too (hey, look! I found a nickle in the gutter!).

Wasn't it a green Moai?

The round tapa one is definitely appealing
first, because it is just plain cool and second because in a basement, space is critical.

To manufacture and sell lamps (legally) the hoops UL makes you jump through means you have to really build alot or just build for yourself. UL doesn't want to bother with the "little guy" and makes it practically impossible to do this on a scale
that is reasonable for a limmited start-up enterprise.

On 2003-01-06 14:11, mrtikibar wrote:

To manufacture and sell lamps (legally)

legal schmegal.. actually i was hoping it was a shade, that i could affix over an existing fixture.

Way back in 2002, Laney wrote:

Mele Kalikimaka to me! I have a lamp fetish and just added these 4 to my triple digit collection. I have one just like the sea horse lamp but it was in such bad shape I took it apart to use the pieces (still a "to be done" project). These will stay in tact and just be rewired. The sea horse lamp I have, came from a restaurant (per seller) and was super greasy. I'm not sure where these are from but I asked the seller for info. with no response yet.

I'd love to see some pics of those; and how do you clean that grease off of your lamps?

Hey Laney,

Check out this lamp I found at a garage sale for three dollars!

Lucite chunks melted to the inside of a fiberglass shell

At night it glows so nice. Pictures don't do the effect justice.

Sabu

The giant grapes and the zebra skin are a nice touch.

Very nice Sabu! I have a couple of the same and a yellow one too. They are such a cool shape! Damn I have a lot of lamps!
Someday I'll post pics of them....

Very cool, I've never seen that inverted resin concept, sort of the lamp version of the inside-out Aloha shirt. Though I never understood that in shirts, why turn perfectly nice colorful patterns inside? The equivalent of prewashed jeans, maybe...
But I'm getting of the subject here. I miss the days when the chunky resin lamps could be found at the flea markets. I did find a Capiz shell lamp though recently. They seemed to have been used much more in Hawaii than on the mainland.
Laney, I still wanna photograph your parents' neighbour's backyard, and your firedancer lamp. Would there be an opportunity now??