What constitutes 'vintage' tiki?

I recently picked up a few mugs that got me thinking about what constitutes 'vintage' tiki.

There are existing definitions by professional antique dealers for 'antique' (100 years and older), and 'vintage' (less than 100 years?), as discussed in this thread. But since tiki/Poly Pop has its own unique history, it seems that a different definition of vintage tiki is in order.

One mug I picked up was a Trader Vics fogcutter mug, dated 1984. An antique dealer would consider this new, but this is about square in the middle of Tiki's dark period. Would this be considered vintage? Also, I picked up two Trader Dicks surfer girl mugs. The mugs are the older style mug. However, these mugs have a gold, oval sticker marked 'China', and are seemingly much newer than mugs you find from the 1960s. However, Ooga Mooga labels this style 'Vintage', and a later design 'Modern'.

So is there a defined period that differentiates vintage and modern mugs? Is it the nadir of Tiki in the 1980s? What criteria do you use, and should there be a standard definition amongst collectors?

anything tiki pre 1985 is vintage.....part of the reason is that the tiki revival had yet to begin, the country was still in the midst of tearing down tiki establishments and there was no sign of any new tiki items on the horizon..everything tiki that was out there in the wild or in thrift shops was the real deal from tikis heyday....it would be at least another 6-7 years or so before tiki started coming back into focus.....and a few more years before companies would be producing and selling tiki items.....that's how i gage it, anyway....i'm sure others may disagree, but remember one important thing...THEY are all wrong and i'm right!!

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2007-11-08 11:03 ]

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2007-11-08 11:05 ]

In my mind, the line of demarcation has always been the 1980's. That's what separates the new from the vintage. It's a pretty thick line, but I generally think that at this point in time anything greater than twenty years old is vintage tiki.

It's bizarre, because there were actually more Tiki Palaces in existance in the 1980s than today. But everybody seems to think the 80s were the Tiki low point????

And there's a sliding scale going on here. Mugs from the 1940s are more vintage than those from the 1970s. Is 'vintage' just another designer word for 'old'? Are 1920s Hawaiiana cups and mugs more 'vintage'?

I just think it's a nice name for strange old stuff. It's not a science. It's an art.

On 2007-11-08 13:17, Cammo wrote:
It's bizarre, because there were actually more Tiki Palaces in existance in the 1980s than today. But everybody seems to think the 80s were the Tiki low point????

..true, but alot of them were either dead or dying...running out of business or in the process of being remodeled or torn down...it was the transition period between old tiki and tikis revival....it's considered a low point because so much was lost before it had a chance to be appreciated by those in the revival that would follow....i think we just consider that period more lamentable, cause we can never get it back...we will never see a building as grand as the kahiki ever again, simply because no one in this day and age is willing to spend that kind of money on that type of building design - (and this is the truly shameful part of trader vics las vegas....all that money available and they still crapped it up)

And there's a sliding scale going on here. Mugs from the 1940s are more vintage than those from the 1970s. Is 'vintage' just another designer word for 'old'? Are 1920s Hawaiiana cups and mugs more 'vintage'?

..if one wants to split hairs, then yes....but for simplicities sake i usually consider it all vintage.....

I just think it's a nice name for strange old stuff. It's not a science. It's an art.

I personally would not go any further than maybe the mid-70s. An art style should always be judged by its peak period of creative innovation, and for Tiki that was the early to mid 60s. It was then that is was expanding, affecting apartments and Motels, and that the most new designs were executed. By the late 60s, except for the Mauna Loa in Detroit (which swiftly disappeared) no major Tiki Temples were built, and nothing was added to the style, it all became repetition from then on. And in the case of all the Orchids of Hawaii-equipped Chinese Tiki places that proliferated in the Mid-West and East coast in the 70s, cheap repetition.
One could call 70s or 80s Tiki mugs LATE vintage Tiki maybe, because stylistically they still came from the classic vintage Tiki period. But most of them are globby, worn out mold versions of better made pieces. There is only ONE shining example of cool new design in 1980 I can think off, the Trader Vic's Moai bowl. Otherwise, for me 80s Tiki stuff is off the chart..as in the BOT "Evolution of Polynesian Pop" chart.

Anything older than I am, is vintage. That date would be Jan. 5th 1976. Hope this clears everything up.

Wow, I don't feel vintage. I mean I never claimed to be in mint condition (since I have a few chips, a repaired crack or two and overall crazing). Well at least I'm not an antique...yet. Can we settle on classic?

I think I agree with Tipsy. 1985.

If restaurant and bar closings are the measure, I fear we STILL have not seen tiki's low point. But that's a topic for a different thread.