Coconut Mystery Mug

I picked up these 4 coconut mugs at the local thrift store. The mugs look rather crude and almost homemade. The sides are matte, and the interiors are glazed. There are no marks printed around the sides, and there are no manufacturer stickers on any of the mugs.

The only clue to their identify is that one of the mugs has some difficult to read writing on the bottom. The text appears to read 'Tahitian' or maybe 'Jamaican'.

Does anybody have any thoughts?

I had a Tahitian Coconut mug a while back and I too asked about it. I sold mine on eBay for around 30 to 40 bucks.

Doctor Z informed me that it was from Spurlin Ceramics and someone from Oceanic Arts emailed me and filled me in on the rest, which I will empart to you now that props are duly noted.

The Tahitian (there were two) were located in Studio City and Pasadena. The one is Studio City is featured on page 152 of the Book of Tiki.

You can find out more about it from Sabu's post at:
https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=4404&forum=1

Here is my original post which can shed additional light as well:

https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=6664&forum=5
Hope this helps.

[ Edited by: Cool Manchu on 2005-06-08 19:19 ]

Many thanks Cool Manchu!

The mug pix you posted in your original post looks very much like the ones I picked up. The style appears to be identical, and the text at the bottom is very similar.

It is too bad only one mug has text on it, but they clearly came from the same source.

A look at the text on my mug appears to be very close to yours. And you got $30 bucks for yours? Wow, I picked these puppies up for $0.95 a piece.

When I bought mine, I picked them up as a pair and only one of mine was marked. That is the one that sold for good money. The other went for 6 to 10 bucks...I don't recall exactly, but it wasn't nearly as much as the other.

On 2005-06-08 19:51, Cool Manchu wrote:
When I bought mine, I picked them up as a pair and only one of mine was marked. That is the one that sold for good money. The other went for 6 to 10 bucks...I don't recall exactly, but it wasn't nearly as much as the other.

I figured the unmarked mugs would not be as valuable, but since I am in the buying and not selling mode, the thought of getting more than I paid for them is icing on the cake.

But even more importantly, I can justify my tiki addiction to the wahine, by saying the ugly mugs might be worth a tidy sum someday. :wink:

Ah, yes. The tiki justification mechanism. I think we all have that. Mine is that I buy all I can find, then sell the duplicates. At the very least I break even, making my tiki collection FREE! Besides, I can quit anytime I want. Really I can. :)

These coconuts mugs don't have any particular mystery, but I wanted to put them in a coconut mug thread, and this looks like a good one. :)

We found these Trader Vic's coconut mugs (no Aloha on the side), marked "Trader Vic" on the bottom, for .50 each in a thrift shop Bend, OR. We were pleased.

I too will pose my question in the "Coconut Mug" thread:

If I were looking to collect these, and didn't happen to stumble across them in my local thrift shops for $.95 [tikipedia, you lucky... guy! :wink:], how much should I expect to reasonably pay for them? And is there any other source besides ebay?

Thanks in advance!

On 2005-07-09 22:04, Haole'akamai wrote:
I too will pose my question in the "Coconut Mug" thread:
If I were looking to collect these,

if you're just looking for everyday use mugs, the Oriental Trading ones are good enough.
i like the Dynasty coconut cups better. there were some at Target earlier this year, but those were rumored to be stinky...

for vintage.. its just hit n miss.somtimes you get lucky, i a dozen "dead stock" Orchids of Hawaii 13A mugs for cheap on Craigslist. its all in the hunt with vintage!

Yep, that's what I figured. Thanks for confirming. :)

We're building a Tiki Bar in the back yard (calling it Hinky Dinks, in ode to Mr Bergeron & our fair town of Oakland)out of the already standing wooden TuffShed, and thought it would be cool to serve everyone drinks in (vintage) coconuts.

I'll just keep my eyes peeled (ew...).

So, I'm dredging up this old topic because, whilst in St. Augutine, FL, TofuJoe and I came across 22 Orchids of Hawaii coconut mugs at the local St. Vincent DePaul, which we promptly bought for 50 cents apiece (actually, we paid 50 cents, each, for 20 of them, leaving the two that had small chips on the shelf. When we got to the register, the guy behind the counter said he'd throw in the two chipped ones for free - how could we resist?).

How do we figure out the catalog number? Would anyone like to help with identification?

Mahalo!

Great find on the mugs. Here's a OOH mug in my collection. The design is a little different but has the catalog number.

On 2008-02-28 12:41, uncle trav wrote:
Great find on the mugs. Here's a OOH mug in my collection. The design is a little different but has the catalog number.

Yours is very similar to the OMC Coconut mug.

I was checking out the R13-A on Ooga-Mooga.

The ones we picked up have a completely different glaze (not matte like the R13-As I've seen, much more like the OOH double walled coconut. But they are of a more similar mold design to the R13-A, although the bottoms are completely different. Maybe just a later/earlier version of the R13-A?

Just visited Florida and found these. Three coconut mugs with the husks on. I like them like. The lower part is double walled. I don't remember seeing these.

$1.50 each

[ Edited by: teaKEY 2008-03-02 18:16 ]

Here's another "made in Jamaica" bamboo mug. This company must have had a whole line of tropical drinkware.

I found this mug at Goodwill with a bunch of vintage Trader Vic coconut mugs. This one has no marks on the bottom and has a much narrower opening on the top. It is also quite heavy compared to the Trader Vic's, almost vitrified. It has what looks to be a "T" in the oval. Can anyone identify it???

On 2009-03-18 12:26, sputnikmoss wrote:

I found this mug at Goodwill with a bunch of vintage Trader Vic coconut mugs. This one has no marks on the bottom and has a much narrower opening on the top. It is also quite heavy compared to the Trader Vic's, almost vitrified. It has what looks to be a "T" in the oval. Can anyone identify it???

I was just over at Ooga-Mooga looking at my collection and saw that the mystery is now solved! http://www.ooga-mooga.com/cgi-bin/all/mug.cgi?mode=view&mug_id=3887

Thanks Humuhumu !

This coconut isn't a mystery, but I thought it would be cool to share even though I lost the bid.
In 1944 the US and Australians invaded the Japanese occupied Admiralty Islands as part of their New Guinea campaign in the Pacific. I hope that this coconut drink vessel, or maybe ashtray, was used in celebration. The carved base is pretty ingenious. An early edition of a coconut mug!
My great-uncle was a gunner on a B-24 in the Pacific and I can certainly imagine him enjoying the Hawaiian and South Pacific ladies.