Cool find at Mom's house!

While helping my Mom bake she said she had something cool to show me. She was holding a dusty, old Yuban Coffee can. Inside was filled with match books from the Kono Hawaii Restaurant in Santa Ana, Calif. Most are orange with black palms and a boat. Some are gold but didn't fare so well over the years. I'll post some pics after the holidays. They are the sliding box type, marked Japan, and get this phone number- JE 1-1232. The best thing about them is they each have a fortune inside!
I took one to Kinkos to have it made poster size. The young clerk said there may be copy right infringements. I told him the place is nonexistent and he can try information or call the phone number on the back. He looked and said "Wow that's cool" Zazzzz!
Sometimes it pays to have parents who lived through a depression and save almost everything! But I do know my other siblings would toss this can in a second as well as the tin of "no feet" (really old) pez I found in their garage. Not Zazzz :(

thank god for cool moms that save cool stuff!.my moms been a yard saler and antique dealer for years, and it has paid off well!(both spiritually and wallet-wise)

Y'all are lucky. My mom saves the worst things (EVERY travel soap from recent years, to use as hand soaps in the kitchen. Enough for an ARMY for years), but has tossed, lost, or allowed to get ruined thru the years:

a cartoon cell from Disney's Snow White, autographed by Disney himself,

a Snow White costume that Mom's neighbor made for her when she was a little girl,

a Scarlett O'Hara doll with every dress from the movie...

and she wonders why I'm such a packrat now. Thank my lucky stars that a neighbor found and returned to my mom the dollar bill autographed by Elvis, which now sits proudly upon my wall. Except that Mom had it framed by an ignoramous, which caused the ink to fade considerably.

I kinda doubt any of us on this list live the Spartan sparseness lifestyle of Japanese minimalism. I'd wager that we all have waaaay too much stuff, according to the average joe who can't appreciate really cool fifty year old matches, menus, coasters, mugs, swizzle sticks, etc.!

I belong to the "way too much stuff" club too! I hate the name packrat though. I always think of those people on the news they save from mountains of trash in their homes, with neighbors saying "I can't believe they lived like that, you just never know what's going on right next door!" Call me a collector.

While this post is back, I gave an update in another post but am so proud of it I'll show the laminated and mounted poster, from Kinko's, of the matchbook. It is still waiting for a bamboo frame.

Formikahini, your mother's story makes me wince.

But then again...

my dad sold his mint condition RED '65 MGB convertible to a real estate agent for $1,000. Rather than leave it to me.

my mom...shudder...

she GAVE HER MINT CONDITION RED EAMES CHAIR (one of the really gorgeous, uncomfortable bent wood ones) to...Salvation Army. Again, rather than...

sigh. Trouble is, scarcely anything I've collected even begins to make up for those heinous acts.

no wonder I'm obsessed with the color red, too.

Laney,
You're right. That matchbook did come out good! You'll have to post pics of it once its framed.

Laney, I love that matchbook. What a great idea...

think I'm going to have to make a trip to Kinko's too!

Did Kinko's do the laminating on it, too?

Can you please tell me the dimensions and (if you don't mind) what they charged for that. It's such a good idea.

-martin

Can you please tell me the dimensions and (if you don't mind) what they charged for that. It's such a good idea.
-martin

I could see a lot of demand for pieces like that, many possibilities. Think of all the great old matchbook art from the long gone bars/restaurants.

Real potential there,
midnite

Actually, that was my first thought, I was going to make these and sell them on ebay. For something that enlarged (from 2 1/2" to 24") it was about $27.00. It was a special they have for photos made into posters. The guy said due to the special having it with laminate and mounted on that corkboard stuff would be the same price as without. I don't think I would make a very good profit since the cost to make would be so high. I have many fond memories of Kono Hawaii so the cost was worth it for me. It is 2 feet tall, those are barstools in the back for size reference.

At the Long Beach Antique market, I've seen a dealer there that sold shadow boxes with vintage matchbooks mounted on enlarged matchbook art. They were really cool! I think they were from $45-$150, depending on the size and rarity of matchbooks used. They had a Hawaiian hotel themed one, but not one for Tiki, but can probably make one myself now that someone else came up with the idea!
:tiki: