Tikis from Trader Vic's Chicago to be auctioned

From the Chicagoist.com:

Want To Buy a Real Trader Vic's Tiki?

"The auction, which begins on August 22, includes more than 35 items, including full-sized tikis, end tables, lamps, masks and giant pacific clamshells."

Edit - link fixed

[ Edited by: Hakalugi 2012-08-07 13:45 ]

Looks like they deleted the page.......

Try this one: http://chicagoist.com/2012/08/07/want_to_buy_a_real_trader_joes_tiki.php

Direct link to the Auction site:
http://catalogues.lesliehindman.com/asp/search.asp?st=U&view1=View&sale_value=210++++

Search "Forthcoming Sales" for "Tiki" and/or "Trader".

Some nice original stuff, but also some recent Asian imports, so the values are kind of arbitrary

only the barney west and the small black tiki with boobs are from the trader vics palmer house.... the rest are indonesian asian imports.

I will add that the barney west has signifigant damage (large splits and cracks) due to being left out in the harsh chicago winter the first year the new traders was open. There are a couple more that have suffered some large dings and dents.

Looks like they cleaned and shined them all up - last i saw them in march(?) they were all dusty and dull, in situ in the then closed traders....

..and who is rob christopher, tiki enthusiast, and why have I never hear of him till now ??

.. and last time I checked, it's highly illegal to sell tortoise shells, at least in this state. Big no-no....

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2012-08-07 16:24 ]

Ha, I think you know who I am by now, Tipsy :) Refresher: http://chicagoist.com/2011/07/01/the_sad_story_of_trader_vics_in_chi.php

Oddly enough this auction is on my birthday. I don't think my blood is rich enough for most of what the items will go for, but I think I'll check it out anyway.

Nice article, Randomcha!

Ya know what's kinda funny, is that the auction house actually sought me out and contacted me at my Tiki Shop about this upcoming auction a few days ago. How'd I get the reputation as the "go to guy" for tiki that they called me instead of the obvious real-life Tiki "Gods" like Sven, Bosko, Danny, et al?

I thought at first that it might be that they found my facebook page for my shop, http://www.facebook.com/TikiLeesTikiShop (if you care to visit), but they called me at the new location of the Charleston Antique Mall where my Tiki Shop USED to be and asked for "The Tiki Guy". Wierd. I guess 10 years of being "The Tiki Guy" in Vegas gets around!

Anyway, here's the DIRECT LINK to the auction pages featuring the Tiki's that they sent me:

http://catalogues.lesliehindman.com/asp/search.asp?st=U&view1=View&sale_value=210++++&pg=60&ps=10

That'll make it easier to find the goodies...

The auction "terms" are 22% percent buyers premium ADDED to the winning bid if you are there, 24% if you are a phone, absentee, or internet bidder. Local pick-up is preferred, as they do not ship. However they have several shippers that they recommend listed on their website. You can expect to pay about $150 to $300 per tiki to ship these heavy mothers! Chicago-area folks, I'm envious!

BTW, BigBro, besides the two that Tipsy said were from the Palmer House, which of the others are from the old location, or just "older"? I'm curious to see if my "guesses" are correct! :)

I'll be watching the auction on-line... I hope one of us "TCer's" gets the good stuff!

After looking at them again, and after Typsy's post, I must say he's probably right: Most of them are fairly recent "Poly-Asian", even the traditional post looking ones, except for the "Tiki Jardiniere", and the Barney Moai. I would not pay more than 150. - bucks for that non-vintage wood, it has no real history.

I suppose it's a good deal if you are local - 1) no need for shipping 2) your gonna pay the same price you would buying direct from one of these online places that sell asian/indonesian tikis and again you can skip shipping cost. 3) good way to fill in your tiki room or yard with some big tikis that would normally cost a small fortune otherwise..... at $300 - $400 bucks it's a good deal, some of these tikis are huge. for those in the midwest that can't make it out to the trader vics warehouse sales on the west coast, , i'd say this could be a good thing.

other than that, there's no reason to own any of this stuff.

@ rob - thanks , now I know. :)

Boy, chicagoist must not pay very much. They call it Trader Joe's twice, in the link and the text:

"...we were informed on our pre-opening hard hat tour of the Chicago Trader Joe's that all of the tikis were from the original Palmer House location.."

That's some fine editin'!

Wankers.

TT

So let me get this straight Trader Vics is selling some stuff?
You TCers should post this news when you find out.:)
Like in every thread.:):smile::smile:

auction over - everything sold for ridiculous amounts of money....

how are seven foot tiki carvings, "new poly-asian" or not ridiculous amounts of money when they sell for $500-$1200?

there's people on TC that spend more than that on "new poly-american" limited-edition mugs.

I think it's a West Coast/Midwest Coast thing.

sorry- maybe $3200 for a poly asian tiki is chump change on the west coast but out in these parts it's just plain foolish....

that said, i need to consider getting into the tiki carving biz cause if these prices didn't scare anyone except us backward, uncultured midwestern folk, , i'm gonna make a killing ...

Har !!

well, i agree that the KU carving selling for almost $4000 is pretty crazy.

i bought the Barney West and frankly, think it was a steal. most of the poly-a tikis sold for cheaper than they did at the TV warehouse sale.

a friend of mine bought two awesome 7 footers for around $700 a piece. i consider that pretty cheap.

to me, most of them stack up against any modern US carver and they have the mana of being form a vintage Trader Vic's location. think about it...these were hand carved in polynesia...they had to be shipped across the ocean to the US, trucked to chicago and then moved from two TV locations....

..makes ya think!

...and an $1800 turtle shell ain't chump change no matter how ya slice it.

That's gotta be one big god damned pre-historic type turtle to make that worthwhile, and even then its gotta be big enough to wear it home and sleep in to not make one feel the icy tendrils of regret after doling out that kinda cash.

I successfully pressed the "Bid" button several times... but my finger stopped working when my heart stopped due to sticker shock. Ah well... back to carving them myself.

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2013-06-25 11:04 ]

On 2012-08-23 07:23, Tipsy McStagger wrote:

I guess when his bar ultimately closes it's doors in 2 years or less, we'll go to his auction and get another shot at the stuff we were outbid on..... har !!

Glad the barney west is going somewhere other than the city dump. It desreves a good home and to be restored (and you have one hell of a restoration job heading your way with this one) to it's original glory. it has provenance from the old palmer house traders.

ouch!

the shells went high but they are pretty hard to come by.

i ship a lot of big stuff and have a deal with some shipping companies that make it cost effective. i recently shipped three ten footers from the Hawaiian Hut in honolulu.

the West is pretty much one of the top signature tikis i've seen...and i've seen alot. it's a friggin shame those dolts decided to take a 50 yr+ indoor tiki and stick it in the chicago weather but i'm sure it's salvageable.

do you know when they did the weird vinyl paint job on the tikis at Palmer House? i have a couple of original P House poles that didn't go to the new location and they already had that fake wood grain paint on them. i'm thinking 80s?

basically, i'll see what the issues are when i get it. if it seems more than i want to handle, i'll take it over to Leroy at OA and have it restored.

http://chicagoist.com/2012/08/23/trader_vics_tikis_go_for_big_bucks.php

• I like how the author takes credit for his post about the tiki auction being responsible for tikiphiles showing up to the auction as if we would never have known about it otherwise.... :)

..and yes, the barney west tiki is salvageable.... just alot of work, but you decide. maybe you can post a tutorial here on the progress as you bring it back to life before our very eyes...

[ Edited by: tipsy mcstagger 2012-08-23 09:57 ]

yeah, that would be fun to do.

i have the 'mascot' tiki from the Trader Vic's Berlin that stood on the street and fully restored him. he was pretty weathered too.

i definitely go for conservation restoration first. i try to make it look as vintage with patina as possible.

i was thinking of starting a thread requesting any photos, new or old that TC'ers might have of the West in the Palmer House location.

Tiki Farm even did a mug based on this guy!

i'll check my archive and see if i have any shots of the barney west for ya...

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2013-06-25 11:06 ]

Congrats on the 7' Barney West tiki1963. Those are incredibly hard to find. Especially that size. And you're exactly the collector who should own it. You can afford it and you can restore it. Trust me everyone, Tiki1963 has a Tiki collection that would have anyone on Tikicentral writhing on the ground in shock. Including me. He's restord some vintage tikis that I thought were beyond repair.

I bought a 3' Barney West a few years ago for $200, and I consider that a bargain. I'd love to find more, but they just aren't out there. Barney West was the personification of the salty free spirited 1950's era west-coast Tiki artist. I'm would think they would be easier to find, but they were almost all restaurant Tikis.

Until these auctions happen, you just can't find Tikis like this. They seem to sell for around the same price as neo-Tiki carvers. $300-$500-$1,000. Thats the going rate folks. I'd love to own a mind-blowing 7' TikiDiablo Tiki. Not that cheap but worth it. A lot of wood and effort goes into these Tikis. Sure that Ku went for $3,000 but WHERE are you going to get one? Beleive me, when Trader Vics starts selling their Tikis for $50-$100 a piece I'll be the first in line.

I believe that we should never shame one another about our tikis. :)

if those tikis were in the $200 - $500 range, sure, that would be a decent price. I would have grabbed one or 2

-but they weren't.

quite frankly i would rather spend crazy money like that on a tiki carved by crazy Al or Benzart....that makes more sense to me than poly asian tikis that were carved within the past 10 years or so and never saw the inside of the trader vics palmer house....

just sayin.

and where am i going to get a $3,000 ku, you ask ?? who cares ?? I wouldn't want one for that price so what difference does it make?

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2012-08-23 14:32 ]

Actually, a few pieces went for below $500.

Tipsy, I never asked you where you were going to get $3,ooo from. I asked where you can find a tiki carved like that Ku? I really don't care how much you spend on your Tikis. Your choice.

true, some tikis went for under $500 but nothing i was interested in. (if those cheaper tikis were actually from the palmer house I might have considered it) You also have to keep in mind the additional expenses- here's an example:

If you bought a tiki at $700 you would also have to add:

• $168 (24% auction fee assuming you bid online or else it was 22% if you showed up to bid in person)
• $100 - $300 or so (shipping) depending on where it was going.
  = $968 - $1,168 total

if you weren't buying it out of state, you paid an additional 9.5% state sales tax

$ 700 is a good price if you can buy it at a flea market or estate sale for $700 ( providing that it's actually a vintage tiki with provenance) - it's all the add-ons that really make it not worth it, at least to me.

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2012-08-23 16:30 ]

In this case you also have to consider that this was an auction. Even if people have the intention to spend a certain amount, when the auction starts, some tend to bid things higher in the heat of the moment.

benzart? crazy al?

i guess everyone has their own taste and sense of history. i guess that's why horse races are interesting.

does not compute.

[ Edited by: tiki1963 2012-08-23 18:27 ]

Hi guys just a quick question for Tipsy: why are you saying that all of the tikis from this auction are new Asian carvings, just because they didn't come from the other Chicago vic's? We know that trader Vic's has a huge warehouse full of tikis, both vintage and new, right?

Clearly a lot of them were, and I'm certainly no expert, but to my eyes a few of those, like the big-headed Marqs & the OA-style pole look neither new nor Asian. What am I missing?

As far as the prices these went for, i'm surprised a little both ways: that some of the more obviously Asian pieces like the Ku, while a beautiful carving, went for so much. But also surprised that pieces like the Marqs & tiki1963s Barney West went for so cheap..

[ Edited by: happy buddha 2012-08-23 19:56 ]

sorry- let me clarify -

I was only referencing the palmer house trader vics. Having been visiting there for years, i was merely pointing out that of the tikis that were put on auction, though they were in the newer trader vics chicago. only the 2 i mentioned were ones i actually saw in trader vics palmer house. You are correct in saying that some of those tikis which came from the warehouse might have been from other places and could be vintage and not asian. The problem is that : There is no way to know for sure if any of those came from any other vintage trader vics and secondly, my concern was that some folks might get confused by this auction thinking that all the tikis up for auction were vintage and from the palmer house. I don't have a problem with the asian tikis. In fact there were 3 or 4 i would have loved to get. I would have loved if there were more tikis from the palmer house , reason being because i spent so much time there that a souvenir of the place would have been great, but at a price I could afford. For sentimental reasons, it didn't make sense to me to spend so much on a tiki that was never in the room when i was there.(palmer house). It was not a part of the palmer house history and thus not a part of my history.

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2012-08-24 02:58 ]

On 2012-08-22 23:36, Ragbag Comics wrote:
...and an $1800 turtle shell ain't chump change no matter how ya slice it.

That's gotta be one big god damned pre-historic type turtle to make that worthwhile, and even then its gotta be big enough to wear it home and sleep in to not make one feel the icy tendrils of regret after doling out that kinda cash.

Those turtle shells were illegal back in the 50s. If it is real, it is very rare. The Mai-Kai had 1 real one and then had their resident artist create repros for them. If they could not get the real things in 1957, it has to be way hard to find today. But I have no real iddea of what it would be worth.

I don't know about anyone else, but I got a direct email from the auction house for this. That blogger was not my source. But I tried to keep it to myself and a few friends...

This is probably the last picture taken of the barney west in it's location at the new trader vics chicago long after it closed. This was taken in May of this year when i was invited down for a sneak preview of the stuff to be auctioned. This one is for tiki1963 - Not the best pic but I was only taking quick snapshots so i could keep track of what i saw there.

thanks!

you know, the more i think about it, that crappy vinyl house paint probably did a lot to protect it while it was outside those past few years.

i'm sure the paint will come off without too much trouble.

i spoke with Leroy and he's going to do the restoration on him. really looking forward to getting it to OA.

here's a pic of another Barney West i have. it's a New Guinea fertility god that was at the Beverly Hills Hilton Trader Vic's through the 1960s and eventually moved to the Scottsdale, Az location until it closed.

i hope they make babies!!

Definitely some great deals were had. The Barney west went for way less than I thought it would. Someone got a great investment and awesome tiki for that price. That tiki is an iconic piece of old school Chicago. These items were awesome. I wonder what happened to the rest of the stuff from the Palmer House location? Seriously neat auction. I put in a couple bids knowing I probably wouldn't be in the range, but it was fun to participate. Also, Leslie Hindman is a cool auction house. I have seen several other true antique south pacific items there before as well as great mid century and pop items. It's not everyday that you get to have a chance at some truly vintage pieces of tiki palace history.

On 2012-08-22 23:36, Ragbag Comics wrote:
...and an $1800 turtle shell ain't chump change no matter how ya slice it.

That's gotta be one big god damned pre-historic type turtle to make that worthwhile, and even then its gotta be big enough to wear it home and sleep in to not make one feel the icy tendrils of regret after doling out that kinda cash.

The ones I got from Kahiki are bigger 25 inches wide? and you could wear them.
I would sell them for $1,500 each that is a six hundred dollar savings.
Call me.

Wow...

Those are some big honkin' shells!

Hey...waitaminnit...I wonder where all these big turtle shells are coming from....

AAAGH!

Ahem.

Anyway...

The Vic's Chicago shell was likely from the Palmer House; I know they had a few there before closing, and this one definitely looked old and gnarly, but I would say it was half the size or even smaller than those beauties you have from the Kahiki (it was maybe 12" to 14" in diameter?)

There was some kind of lacquer coating on it that was peeling up a bit... it was definitely not "fresh from the turtle."

I'm kind of a goon for interesting old taxidermy, and I'd love one of those old turtle shells, but, indeed, the big authentic ones go for substantial bucks.

I grew up on the Mississippi, and the shell in this recent auction looked more like a big snapper shell than a tortoise to my eyes. Big snapper shells aren't too tough to come by

But whatever... to each his own with this kind of thing. One man's $1800 turtle shell is another man's mortgage payment or however you wanna slice it. Taken on the whole, I've definitely spent/over spent on some things over the years. It's all part of the process.

We're all just lucky to have the spare bucks occasionally to pick up some fun stuff, regardless of how many of those spare bucks there are to spread around.

As some have said, at least some of these items are staying "in the family," so to speak- whether in a private collection, or in a new public bar, the circle continues, and at the end of the day its good to see people coughing up the cash for these things instead of the ol' lonesome days when they were drug out to the curb or consigned to the dumpster.

--Pete