need history please

Any help from folks would be appreciated in providing the history of my Tiki. I just bought this guy a few weeks ago, waiting for my handyman to rig up some kind of wall support for him...he is around 10 feet tall and will eventually be installed in the corner of my dining room (I'll post pix then). I know he was at the SF Trader Vics.

edit...forgot to say...credit to Humuhumu for picture above :wink:

[ Edited by: VampiressRN 2011-09-15 20:48 ]

Marquesan/Tahitian? Hope you post more pics when you get it home!

Yes...Marq...he is temporarily tied up on one of the pillars in my entryway...so will try to get some pix tomorrow. Rumor has it...he was carved on one of the Polynesian islands and spent his early life in Nor-Cal...I think he will be with me now for my lifetime. I don't know if he has any signatures so when he gets moved to his permanent home, will try to look on the bottom.

xcuse my poor pix...using my cell left-handed.

Vamp, don't expect an educated assessment of your Tiki if in the photos you are posting he is

1.) Mostly hidden from view, and

2.) so dark that you cannot make out detail

Me saying that is not "being mean", it's just common sense. It's pointless to apologize for bad photo quality: LOOK at your photos instead, and figure out how to make the subject visible before you post 'em - then you will give folks a chance to make an educated judgement.

Thanks Sven...point taken...I am going to have to have a friend grab some better pix for me...can't do it justice with my arm in this cast...plus I am not a great photographer to begin with...lol. I'll be back. :)

Ahaaa...the first one not your photo, broken arm...you are excused. :wink:

Here is what I know and think:

In the 40s and early 50s, before the demand in the States made Tiki carving a worthwhile profession for Barney West and others, Trader Vic's did have Marquesan-style Tikis carved in Tahiti:

Now yours does look similar, but not exactly the same, it could be a more recent version.

But it does NOT look like an Asian import. So I would tend to corroborate the info that came form the warehouse.

Thank you...maybe if someone knew people that worked at the SF Trader Vics...they might have some history on my guy...just a thought...I would not know how to network to the right people. I have my digital camera charging so will have a friend help me eventually.

Moved to Collecting Tiki from General. Thanks John-O.

Yes...thanks JohnO. Will post better pics later.

On 2011-09-17 07:39, bigbrotiki wrote:
But it does NOT look like an Asian import. So I would tend to corroborate the info that came form the warehouse.

For sure he came from the warehouse. Kier Fullmer from the Trader Vic's Warehouse might know exactly where he came from, and when and where he was carved. Turns out that her uncle used to carve a lot of the tikis for Trader Vic's back in the '50's and '60's. The next time I talk to her, I'll ask her about your particular tiki, if you haven't found out anything by then. It would be interesting to see how far back this tiki dates, as they had a few of these really tall ones at the warehouse sale - laying side by side together on the ground because it was easier to store them that way - but the ones from that group weren't for sale, as they were destined for other restaurants, and they all looked pretty old.

It would indeed be interesting to find out if they were imported from Tahiti all along, or if at some point in the 50s or 60s a local supplier took over and started copying them for the chain. They were a staple of Trader Vic's locations during the peak of their proliferation.

While I wait to get Mr Marguesan secured in my dining room and to take better pictures, I have collected what I could off the net. (full credit to the photographers, none of these pix are mine) Thanks Bill for planning to ask about about this guy...your networking will be helpful.

Here is Psycho Tiki D & AlohaCurrent helping get the Tiki into TikiHula's home when he bought it at the Warehouse sale. Mike indicated that this 10 foot curved Marquesan Tiki was last seen looming behind the bar at the recently closed TV SF location. Thanks to Mike for selling him to me.

Pictures of him hiding amongst the bottles on the backbar.

Marlene, here are a few pics from the warehouse sale, that you can find in this specific posting in this thread:
Trader Vic's Warehouse Sale #1

The tiki was REALLY heavy, and it took a bunch of strapping young lads to load it, while I watched. :wink:

Mike's hand got a little smashed up in the process, but you'd never guess it with that huge smile on his face!

We managed to fit the tiki into someone's SUV, but it was still so long that it's head stuck out of the back, and that's the really heavy part! I believe that the bottom part went all the way up to the dash board, and it was fairly secured somewhere up along there, but the head still moved around to some degree, and Ray and I were more than a little worried that it could slip out on the long drive home to Sacramento! Well, obviously there were no mishaps, so it made the journey just fine.

Btw, remember when I said that they had several really large vintage tikis similar in style to yours that were as big or even much bigger, and although they were lumped in with the merchandise available for sale due to storage concerns, yet they weren't available for sale as they were destined for restaurants? Well, here's some pics of those as well, they're laying on the floor:

P.S. Anyone who has been to my house recently (like within the last 8 months or so) would probably be shocked to see what my front living room used to look like BEFORE I loaded all of the schwag in there from the warehouse sale plus bamboo and other building materials to build my home bar. Well, here ya go!

Thanks for the great post Bill. Your place is gonna be rockin!!!

When I bought my marq from the Berlin sale, Kier specifically said it was carved in Fiji... I have a hard time understanding how this could be, but there you have it. Maybe there were Marquesan/Tahitian carvers working out of Fiji? hmmmm...

-Trad'r Bill