Prices on mugs dropping, what gives?

Much to my wife’s dismay, I spend way too much time and money on Ebay looking for all things tiki but mostly mugs. Over the last 4 or so months I have noticed some really interesting trends. First is a search I do almost every day. That search is a keyword search on tiki cross referenced with anything that has an active bid on it. Until recently at any one time the number of hits on that search would be in the 300-350 range.
Starting late fall/early winter last year, I started seeing a significant drop in the number of active bids. It seems to have stabled out at about 140-180 active bids. In the 4 years I have been doing this, I have never seen a sustained drop like this. It is also worth noting that the number of items posted with Tiki in the description has remained about the same.

I have also seen a significant drop in price of the items themselves. To use mugs as an example I have seen the price on vintage mugs drop anywhere from 30-50%. I’ve picked up some really nice pieces over these last couple of months that shocked me based on what I paid. For example a Mauna Loa pigeon, drum, and standard tiki mug for 500 dollars. Not too long ago that was 700-800 dollars. I picked up a Steve Crane Bird bowl for a 135, once again early last year that was a 230-300 item. Most recently a Steve’s rum barrel for 95 bucks when those are normally in the 100-150 range.

These are just some of my observations. Obviously I’m thrilled I am picking up wish list items at what I think are great prices. However it does concern me. Is this something limited to the vintage mug market due to saturation or something similar? Or is this due to something else like a dwindling interest in tiki which I don’t think is the case. I’m really curious what other collectors think. I would really be interested in what our crafters and events coordinators are seeing as well.

"Or something else like a dwindling interest in tiki"

Have you seen what is going on here?
TC has taken a dive too.
What makes you think it's not a dwindling interest in tiki?

Two words, "Bennie Baby"
Or one word "Tulip""Dutch Golden Age grew, so did this curvaceous and colorful flower. They became popular in paintings and festivals. In the mid-seventeenth century, tulips were so popular that they created the first economic bubble, known as "Tulip Mania" (tulipomania). As people bought up bulbs they became so expensive that they were used as money until the market in them crashed."

Maybe it is just "Tikimugomania"

On 2016-02-03 08:26, tikiskip wrote:
"Or something else like a dwindling interest in tiki"

Have you seen what is going on here?
TC has taken a dive too.
What makes you think it's not a dwindling interest in tiki?

There has defiantly been a drop here. I don't know if that is due to lack of interest or the fact that to many people, Message Forums are a relic and prefer to spend most their time interacting on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. Personally I prefer the boards due to the archival nature of them. Having said that I am much more active on social media then here.

Question for you Skip, how have the requests for lights been recently versus a couple years back?

"Question for you Skip, how have the requests for lights been recently versus a couple years back?"

No I have not, but then I have been blowing people off too.
I think I'm burned out as well, so that is part of the reason.

As far as my lights go there are forces that work against me as well.
It's not like any book,group or mag is trying to help me out in that area, it is
very hard for people makin tiki that do not live in California as they get little
press and the folks makin tiki (Mostly Cali types)send folks wanting tiki to people they know. (Mostly Cali types)

Many other tiki makers have said the same thing so there ya go.

If I answer a question here on TC I barely get any thing, not so much as a reply.
Makes you not want to take part in TC.
If some Cali big wig does the same you would think god had just put oil on your feet.
Have sent lights to people and they PM saying how great it is but say NOTHING on TC.

Look at who is on TC today posting, the same ten people that know each other and are friends.
Plus a handful of tokens that mostly try to sell their brand of tiki.
THIS is a big part of what is killing TC.

The people who need TC the most are the one helping kill it.

The best guess I can give as to the migration to interacting on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram
Is that you can tailor who gets in and form your own group.
Ah feel the Aloha.

You are going to get TONS more info on Message Forums than the Facebook/Twitter/Instagram
deal, At least you USED to.

Can't tell you how many TC people tell me I'm right and feel the same.
They still would not throw a line if I were drowning, at least not if someone could see.
Before I took my last breath they would ask how I tie float thou.

Last thing, go to your page on TC the one that tells about you.
Now look at the thing that says "recent posts"
IF your posts are mostly about your event, your art, something you are selling, your bar or book.
Then you are helping kill TC.
Man post SOMETHING other than ME, ME, ME people.

Not pissed at any one person, not you for sure, just how it is.

Aloha, Mahalo, Ohana.

First, interest and activity on TC is not at all an indicator of interest in Tiki. As you said, message boards are not used much and the real purpose of TC was research and that is a dwindling thing as years go by. The other things that you may associate with TC are handled by modern communications of Instagram, FB, CL and eBay. Attendance at events is rising.

As for mug values, I personally believe the trend is for people to buy new and not vintage. The OG Tiki peeps were into vintage because we were also into the research. And we also were buying when it could be found cheap. The market is finite and only so many people are looking for a Steve Crane Bird Bowl and the price keeps dropping. However, this is a very well documented item. Check Ooga-Mooga and you see the price is all over the place. The average is $225 but it has sold for over $300 several times lately and for less than $150.

Same for the Barrel and the Drum.

I'd say I don't see a dropping pattern here, but I do see that there is always a chance to get a mug cheap (relatively).

And you may also be seeing a more savvy set of buyers who don't bid until the last few seconds. I'd be more curious to see the numbers of Sold Tiki items than those with bids. If the number of listed items is steady, is the number of Sold items steady?

The Tiki world is evolving. TC is going to continue to lose active users. It's an unpopular format. And a lot of what was exciting 10 years ago is nearly dead, i.e. new findings, new questions, new research. The cocktail experts were doing a lot through blogs, but blogs are losing some steam lately too. More people interested in cocktails, but that won't be seen here. They are not coming here as much anymore because phpBB is an unpopular format.

I've noticed the same thing... super rare stuff popping up on eBay and elsewhere
I didn't even think twice about keeping an eye on because I assumed it would go for
an arm and a leg ending with no bids on it (or going for peanuts)

At the same time, I've noticed prices on older Tiki Farm and Munktiki pieces have
jumped way up in a lot of cases... an example there, my wife and I had our wedding
"reception" at Frankie's and have been trying to find the first two anniversary mugs...
but those really can't be had for less than $150-$200 on eBay (which is too rich for my
blood...)

My theory on this (and on the lack of energy on TC as Skip mentions) has been three-fold...

1. The thing we all never thought would happen HAS happened... Tiki is "back" (even
   though we all know it never really went away if you know where to look...) There
   are new bars popping up left and right, some great, some hopping on the trendy bandwagon.
   My wife and I started really getting heavily into this stuff about 10 or 11 years ago,
   and it was unknown and mysterious and you had to look for it. Once you found it, it was
   like this magical secret thing, a relic from the past to be treasured and it was your own
   special, weird thing that YOU found. You'd meet other people along the way and come to find
   this whole community who discovered it, too... but the common thread was you had to FIND it.
   It was not a mainstream thing...

Now, there's a WHOLE lot of people just getting into it, who haven't probably ever been
to a classic old place, but will go to the hot new craft Tiki bar in town because it's
all the rage at the moment... they may even go off the beaten path and find a classic era
place because they read an article online or saw something on TV about Tiki bars. (And that's
a good thing... more people means more business means less places closing their doors...
but it's not "secret" anymore...)

I dunno about you guys, but 10 years ago (and certainly further back than that) that would have
been seismic to see a report on the Travel Channel or the nightly news about Tiki. Now it's
bordering on a common occurence.

I think for some folks, this has removed a bit of the mystique and some of the cache it once had, which,
when coupled with the sometimes in-fighting and cliqueishness and territoriality we've all experienced
in different ways in the Tiki scene, has just burned out some of the old timers. There's too many
"new people" into the once-secret society.

Personally, I think so many new bars opening is, ostensibly, a good thing... it shifts the public
perception of "Tiki" from the Party City, Margaritaville hell-pit it was in 10 or 15 years ago into
a much more proper context... but an influx of new people into the "right" kind of Tiki also means
more people who may inflate prices on things at the peak of trendiness, but lose interest shortly thereafter (not that I think a lot of newly initiated folks are necessarily spending hundreds of dollars on vintage mugs, which brings me to my second point...)

2. To newcomers, freshly exposed to the wonder that is Tiki, a Tiki mug is a Tiki mug... so a Dynasty mug might be as interesting as anything else, because it's all new to you. And an older Tiki Farm piece might be as rare or exciting in the new collectors mind as something vintage, just because there's so much out there. I guess I don't think history is that important to a lot of newer collectors as it was to people who have been doing it for a long time... there aren't as many classic era bars LEFT to pique interest, for one thing, and for another, there are tons of NEW bars, so in the mind of a new collector, they might associate Tiki with "NEW" which was something that didn't exist years ago...

If you started collecting mugs 10 or 20 years ago, there WEREN'T that many (or ANY)new mugs... so you found vintage stuff. Now, Tiki Farm has been making great, interesting new mugs for 15 years, Munktiki not too much less time than that, not to mention all of the individual artists and smaller companies out there making cool mug art (many of the Tiki Facebook groups have tons and tons of stuff...) Even just two or three years ago, there was NO WHERE near as many people trying their hand at making Tiki... I guess that's all a long way of saying, there's more competition for the Tiki-buying dollar these days. Years ago, it was possible to buy EVERY new mug you saw and not be totally broke at the end of the day and still have some money left for vintage stuff... now there's so many artists making $100, $200+ new mugs, you'd need a second mortgage to have everything you see, nor could you even possibly know about all of it.

Tying those rambling thoughts together, I guess I would equate the modernization and current tiki "trend" to being into punk rock (or any kind of underground anything) BEFORE Hot Topic and the Internet... you really had to dedicate time to find things. Now it's become cool to be counter-culture, and you have major corporations selling you Ramones T-Shirts at Target. Once there's money in a secret thing, it's not secret anymore and it takes some of the fun out of it... you're not the weird loner kid anymore. With the newest, trendiest Tiki places, you have to wait in LINE.... ! Think about that...years ago during the classic Tiki-era "die-off," you were more worried that the place would have closed since you last visited due to lack of business.

3. I think there's just a limited amount of people who will spend big bucks on Tiki Mugs, period... there's no way of knowing how many of certain vintage mugs were ever made in the first place, so there's REALLY no telling how many are left in the world. To me, that's half the fun and excitement,
   but realistically, at some point all the people who want a particular piece might have it... Often
   (or, used to be often) you'd see people post on TC about an auction they got outbid on, where there were two people bidding like crazy driving up the price, and the winner would appear as a fellow TC-er. At some point, if the two people who REALLY want it get it, the price starts to come down for the rest of us who assumed we'd just never be able to afford it.

I guess with all that, I'm just glad we got to experience "secret" Tiki, before it exploded again... I will always have nostalgic feelings about the first time I walked into the Palmer House Trader Vic's or Hala Kahiki (or the Mai Kai) It just bowled you over that these places had been hiding out for 50-60 years. It's less nostalgic now, but if the new places are doing it right and the people filling them are enjoying the strange exoticism and escapism we all crave, then by God, have at it.

As far as TC goes, Skip - I hear ya. I've never been one to post a lot of comments, but I get email updates and typically find SOMETHING I want to read on here every day. But the frequency of
interesting finds and discoveries on here, and the frequency of posts in general, has certainly tapered off a bit. TC really is indispensible, though... we moved in October (into an actual HOUSE for the first time, not a condo or an apartment) and I am very very excited about finally building our dream bar in the basement... the "Home Bars" section of TC is a treasure trove; accumulated years of experience, right there for the taking.

And... I WILL start a thread about the progress...

--Pete

"I've never been one to post a lot of comments"
And I'm not saying post "great job" a ton of times.
But dam post pics of the events you go to, or the bars. stuff you find ect...

Just bumping your thread to the top EVERY day with BS just so you can be at the top every day, wow really do you need that much petting?

I got mugs to sell that I just never got around to doing.

It blows me away how some of the stupid newer mugs can sell for more than the old mugs.
I'm talking the ones from Kahiki too, so don't get your new mug makin undies all twisted.

Here's the real deal, the stuff that was an after thought or from a guy that only
made a few mugs think Frankoma, Hoffman and ITV to name a few.
Those are the ones that in time long from now will be the ones people want.

This is part of why I try not to make light, after light, after same light.
Because in time when all the main players of today are gone there will be a new set of judges and I feel pretty good about my cases chance.

The natural ebb and tide of such things that fall under the tiki pop culture.

I for one, am glad to see discussions of this sort here on TC again
it happens so rarely these days, so few folks here seem to communicate anymore
on both serious & not so serious topics.

Skip I do agree with you that many people here are using TC for self promotion
and driving personal sales without participating in the Tiki Central dialogs
we used to have (for good or bad)

But I have to say your point of much Tiki activity/sales etc. taking place in California
is also on a downward spiral, as I am part of those circles, I can tell you first hand
things are tough here also, the hub of the SoCal scene here (Tiki Marketplaces etc.)
is being supported primarily by new folks to the scene, as very few old TCers are really supporting it
by purchasing art/crafts/clothing etc.

I know economics is a major factor (no body ever got rich in Tiki, Though Shag makes a good living I am sure)
as for Tiki Mug prices, of course those are cyclical as prices have been ridiculous the last couple of years
due to rabid eBay profiteers driving those prices up, just because people would bid on them.
And just because someone can pin the label "vintage" on something, doesn't mean it is worth much or anything.

Keep up the discussions guys, it gives TC some relevancy in this social media driven nightmare we live in today.

On 2016-02-03 15:29, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:
"I for one, am glad to see discussions of this sort here on TC Again".

Heck the last time we did that on some thread about what drink to serve at some guys home bar he got kinda pissed about the derail, so the derail stopped and so did all talk on that thread.

"But I have to say your point of much Tiki activity/sales etc. taking place in California
is also on a downward spiral,"

Well that was maybe more Swankys point...
"Attendance at events is rising"

But how can that be if Dannos point is...
"The natural ebb and tide of such things that fall under the tiki pop culture"

It can't be both ways.

Could it be somewhat the divide that the International Tiki Market Place feud has
brought up?
I know I feel a group who's name cannot be mentioned it is my own opinion that they did help fracture the TC site.

My point was Cali folk help Cali folk and the group who's name cannot be mentioned help
Their own kind and so on and so on.

Ohana is BS.

"as for Tiki Mug prices, of course those are cyclical as prices have been ridiculous the last couple of years"

I stopped the eBay mug hunt because the best mugs, Like ALL of them went to one guy so
just got sick of getting beat up on every sale, And I did go deep many times.
Guess I should thank him for saving me tons o cash as the prices drop. "Rosebud"

This fight over the money and attention is going to take it all down and the people
won't want what's left of the tiki crowd.
It will be like Stuart from Mad TV in a room all by himself jumping up and saying "look what I can do" but nobody looks.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2016-02-03 16:09 ]

This discussion just made me wish I had more to contribute with!

Unfortunately, living where the only Tiki bar within 100km is in slacksferret's basement, where I don't have my own house to make one, and the Canadian dollar is plummeting when it was ALREADY costing an arm and a leg to ship stuff here, means I just can't be as big a participant. I mostly get to be the envious observer, mentally cataloguing everything cool for that mythical "some day". And I do visit every day to see what everyone else is posting... I can try to post more here with photos of the few things I manage to do, like personal projects or my trip to the Sip-N-Dip last year that I don't think I've posted any photos of yet.

I'm not sure which would be the greater indicator of the Tiki revival going full mainstream novelty kitsch: that Disney has opened Tiki bars or that trendy districts in big cities have opened Tiki bars catering to hipsters. Since Tiki and Disney do overlap for me (it was the Enchanted Tiki Room that got me into it, as evidenced by my user name), this talk about TC reminds me of the life cycle of the online Disneysphere. Forums used to be the big thing, then it was blogs, then podcasts and social media. It wasn't just the product lifecycle of online media platforms that changed though. With forums, you always run into clashing personalities between people who might not have anything in common but affection for the subject, and eventually everyone just runs out of things to talk about. "Haven't we really said everything that needs to be said about the Haunted Mansion?" In searching out new topics, blogs eventually got to such obscure areas that they were bypassed by the largest part of the fandom. My own Disney blog gets sh*t for views because don't nobody care about essays on the historical Davy Crockett or photos of real National Parks lodges (likewise, my Victorian Science Fiction blog gets a fraction of what the average "Steampunk" blog gets, because I don't post photos of girls in brass corsets). Now if only Disney pins were going down in price the way Tiki mugs have...

On 2016-02-03 16:08, tikiskip wrote:
Heck the last time we did that on some thread about what drink to serve at some guys home bar he got kinda pissed about the derail, so the derail stopped and so did all talk on that thread.

I was involved in that derail. I said what I wanted to when I thought it meant something to some of the other posters and readers, and then I stopped when I shared what I wanted to say. Sure, someone commented about the derail in "his" thread, but he may not understand the dynamic of how these free-for-all exchanges happen on sites like TC. They're natural conversations.

In defense of Tiki Central:
This is not just an "entertaining" site, but it's an "archive" too. Thank the tiki gods that we're not limited by all the message expiration (message loss) of social media, and the other cumbersome restrictions we have to put up with in social media. Here the messages can be found again later if someone wants to do a search. I don't think it's justified to bash this "old" style message system when it brings a lot of positive things to the table that social media just doesn't offer. Tiki Central is persistent social media - it lives on a long time regardless of how good or bad the content is. At least it's searchable when you need it.

On 2016-02-03 16:08, tikiskip wrote:
This fight over the money and attention is going to take it all down and the people
won't want what's left of the tiki crowd.
It will be like Stuart from Mad TV in a room all by himself jumping up and saying "look what I can do" but nobody looks.

I'm definitely not pessimistic about what's going on, even though a small number of commercial posters have in the past quite freely spammed us with annoying sales pitches for their cheesy "tiki" stuff. I'd suggest to just let it all go, have a drink and chill, and use your delete key if reading via email. Bad behavior will continue to surprise us here and there, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. (I hope very little of that bad comes from me, but I'm human too.) We should enjoy the ride with the many good folks here, we should look back often, but always look forward in anticipation of what's still ahead of us.

And pray to the tiki gods that Tiki Central has a long and successful life.

In contrast to the cited decline in Tiki mugs Trader Vic's coconut mugs, which I often see for a buck a junk shops, have sorta jumped in price on eBay recently.

In my time with Tiki I have noted several declines in prices on vintage. Winter also seems a low time for Tiki prices.

As far as TC goes...There are some old timers, such as myself, who regard it as an active archive. If I ever come across something important to the history of Tiki or collectors I will post it here. But the day-to-day activity, for me, is no longer a draw as much of what comes up has been discussed before or it seems dominated by people who think of TC as FB and post whatever bit of fluff floats through their skulls. I used to rail against that, now I just don't care. Fluff away!

On 2016-02-03 20:59, woofmutt wrote:
...dominated by people who think of TC as FB and post whatever bit of fluff floats through their skulls. I used to rail against that, now I just don't care. Fluff away!

That reminds me...

On 2016-02-03 10:42, Ragbag Comics wrote:

Now, there's a WHOLE lot of people just getting into it, who haven't probably ever been
to a classic old place, but will go to the hot new craft Tiki bar in town because it's
all the rage at the moment.....

To newcomers, freshly exposed to the wonder that is Tiki, a Tiki mug is a Tiki mug.....

I guess I don't think history is that important to a lot of newer collectors.....

But the frequency of interesting finds and discoveries on here, and the frequency of posts in general, has certainly tapered off a bit.

I think Ragbag summed it up very well and i'm just going to touch on the points he made that i have quoted.

1.) We have several bars here in Australia that have 'tiki' drinks on the menu but as far as actual Tiki bars go, there is maybe half a dozen spread out over the entire country and not all of those are necassarily good. The LuWoW, which is one of two in my home town of Melbourne, is absolutely amazing decor wise (drinks are average) but the amount of people who are actually into tiki culture and its history is a joke. I go whenever i can, maybe once every 2-3 weeks, and hang out with a friend and the manager and then occasionally another friend might show up, but we all go when it opens and then leave after a few hours when it starts getting busy. Wednesday is 'Rum Club', which no-one goes to, it's just a few people who might go out for a drink on a Wednesday night. Thursday is karaoke in the back room, and Friday and Saturday nights bands play in the back room also.
When the back room is open (Thurs-Sat) there is NOBODY in the tiki room. People are there for the 'event's' that are on. Not to hang out and chill in an awesome looking tiki bar. They actually close the tiki bar down on Thursday nights because it's not worth having two bars running. (The back room is called The Forbidden Temple and is not tiki, although one or two might be in there somewhere).
Now my point after all that and in relation to Ragbag's comment, is that it is not tiki people visiting this venue. It's people who go there because the place is 'cool'. I would love to know how many people, if any at all, had never heard of tiki before The LuWoW opened and then after going there actually became interested in what 'tiki' and 'tiki culture' is all about and researched it and then became heavily involved/interested. I reckon i could count them on one hand, and still have fingers left over.

2.& 3.) To me, those two points go together and also relate to point number one and my comment above. All these new people into 'tiki' aren't really into it all. They just like the imagery, that it involves cocktails and getting drunk (not that there is anything wrong with that), and also that it is all the rage at the moment.

4.) This is true and is what Swanky said below.

On 2016-02-03 10:27, Swanky wrote:
First, interest and activity on TC is not at all an indicator of interest in Tiki. As you said, message boards are not used much and the real purpose of TC was research and that is a dwindling thing as years go by.

And a lot of what was exciting 10 years ago is nearly dead, i.e. new findings, new questions, new research.

It's all been said/covered before somewhere on this forum (which will bring me to AceExplorers comment). Unless we are talking about new bars that are opening up or new artists/mug makers, there is not much left to discover. Besides an old article or menu or crypto mug showing up occasionally that refreshes an already discussed topic, there's not much more out there to learn.

*This comment here and what Tikiskip said, "If I answer a question here on TC I barely get any thing, not so much as a reply. Makes you not want to take part in TC.", is summed up in this particular post, which is something new and interesting to talk about. There has been nearly 400 views and only 11 responses. Technically you could say eight responses because Skip has commented three times, and the views are probably only half that because i'm pretty sure a lot of those views are the same people coming back to read the thread again when they can see somebody has posted a new comment (i know i'm guilty of that). So even if it is really only half that number of views, why is it there are only 8/200 comments/views? Why aren't people contributing?

And then there is this;

On 2016-02-03 17:00, AceExplorer wrote:
Sure, someone commented about the derail in "his" thread, but he may not understand the dynamic of how these free-for-all exchanges happen on sites like TC. They're natural conversations.

.....if someone wants to do a search.

And it's not just the newbies who are guilty of this, but no-one bothers using the search function. If you took the time to do that, not only would you most likely find the answer to the question you are going to ask, BUT, you might also discover that not only has your question already been covered at great length in another thread, you'll also see that that thread got derailed too but new 'conversations' started in it that led to something new being discussed that you can learn from.
People these days are just so lazy and just want instant gratification. "Look at me! I want to start my OWN thread and have people respond to MY question and talk to ME, instead of me taking some time to do some research".

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Yes Tiki Toli, i've noticed it a lot also. I always have several mugs in my 'watched' list on eBay just to see what they end up selling for and am always surprised as to how cheap some of them go for. I'm not in a postion to be buying many mugs these days and sometimes there are mugs i would like to buy but just can't afford to at the moment, but then when i see how little they have sold for, sometimes i think i could have bid on it and won it.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2016-02-04 03:50 ]

On 2016-02-03 20:59, woofmutt wrote:
...dominated by people who think of TC as FB and post whatever bit of fluff floats through their skulls. I used to rail against that, now I just don't care. Fluff away!

But seriously, now I'm really amused. In the last few hours I've read new posts commenting that TC has gotten too quiet, but social media (like Facebook) are good. Now woofmutt expressed the opposite - keep TC non-Facebookish. I think this underscores what I said earlier -- we have to just deal with what crops up in a public forum, and to accept both the good and the not-so-good. Occasionally this means what some would consider mindless banter, but which could develop online impressions of our various keyboard personas. I think we've come full circle with at least a few variations of both ends of the spectrum. We can't please everyone, so why worry about it?

As long as there are good "nuggets" among the fluff, I'm fine with it. We're not all tiki researchers or tiki scholars who have only pure brilliance shooting out of our keyboards. Think of how boring that could be, and how much less likely we would be to participate in that sort of a forum.

Nuff said... DRINKS, EVERYBODY!

Swizzle and Swanky, good comments, and you made me wonder what the "new frontiers" today would be. Tiki archaeology -- where more of us run out and document/discuss what's left and is quickly disappearing from the mid-century stuff? That would be great fun, and could be done by many (but not all) right in our own backyards. I remember running into a symposium presenter at the last Hukilau who lived his interest to the fullest and explored closed/abandoned former tiki locations. He had great photos and great stories. Surely there are a lot of things out there still to be explored, photo-documented, etc. all over the globe. Bring it on!

I'll give some thought to being less "chatty" myself here. But honestly, you folks drag out the desire in me to discuss and share thoughts on a lot of subjects. So is this place really dead? Hell no, I don't think so. There's tremendous value here, and that's why I try to keep my finger on the pulse and also enjoy participating. Really, this is way better than Facebook and Twitter, and I'm puzzled that this is a discussion topic at all here.

Just the fact that a number of us are talking
is a good thing, I for one, choose to spend my online time here on TC
and avoid all social media due to it's temporary nature, which by definition is ultimately meaningless.

Here there is a record of everything discussed, both good & bad.

The decline of prices of vintage mugs goes back way further than months. Its been on a steady decline for years.
For example, Back in early 2000's, a hawaii kai hula girl tiki mask mug was $70-$100. Now, they are $30-$70.
Stephen Crane yellow/red Ku mugs went $100-$125, now I've seen them on ebay sell for $40-$60.
Go to Ooga-mooga, Pick a vintage mug, looks at the oldest price listings (which I believe is 2006) and then compare to now. Its a steady decline.

Why? I'd say supply and demand and a shift in the priorities of the "tiki" fan.

Early collectors focused on vintage, because that was all there was. We searched out old places, old menus, and later saw cool mugs we didn't know existed in books like Duke Carter's book and here on tiki central. We searched them out. It was tough to find mugs from someplace 3000 miles away. Ebay made it easier. Prices grew and serious and/or rich collectors fulfilled their wishes. Once those collectors had those pieces, demand goes down, and so do the prices.

New mugs came on the scene. At first they were easier to get and cheaper. Now you have people that just collect "new" (post 2000) mugs and could care less about the vintage stuff. No hunting in thrift stores, yard sales, swap meets...just order online...Its weird to me. Now the new mugs are even harder to get and more expensive than some vintage mugs, so people are focused even harder on saving money and getting these new mugs.

Shift in priorities played a big part too. In the early days, tiki was all about collecting...matchbooks, mugs, menus, actual pieces from the restaurants. Then came a HUGE emphasis on drinking. It became all about the drinks, mixing, this rum, blah blah blah. People spending way more money on the drink side instead of decorations or collecting.
I've heard people at events say, "I'd love to buy that but I need the rest of my money for drinks". You see it in the home bar section. First thing they do is build a bar, set it up, and then build a room around it. You see threads with People filling a shelf behind a bamboo bar with tons of liquor, 3 new style mugs sitting on a shelf, a string of lights and a crappy wood sign that says tiki bar. They name it the "comeiwannaleiya bar" or some stupid name and they get 6 comments about how awesome their rum selection is. Their priority is drinking, not collecting.

Decline in tiki popularity? Obviously it isn't as popular as 2004, but its still popular enough. I don't think its a loss of popularity, I think its "lost its way" so much that many old school people just don't choose to be active in it. Major events having themes or cowboys, space, spy....mug companies making monkeys, pink gorillas, zombies faces, rocket ships...entertainers consisting of techno, hillbillies, burlesque dancers, mermaids..... etc etc etc. There's no connection. Some person with "skin in the game" will come on here and try to justify it, but its a huge stretch and nonsense. There are people in this thing we call "tiki" that have no idea who stephen crane was, but partying it up at a cowboy theme room crawl while drinking from a $300, #7 of 25 special blue glaze rocketship fez mug....That's what tiki is to them. Its not about studying old buildings or collecting menus.

Decline in tiki central? Anyone actually still reading this isn't going to be happy.
At the last 2 marketplaces I attended I asked people "do you go on tiki central?". When they said "No" or "rarely" I asked why. I got the same answer repeatedly, the only answer I got...."Its full of Jerks"
And they are right. Certain people here are terrible to others, especially newbies. Over the years I've seen it all ...People can't play nice with FOM, can't play nice with random people coming here to sell, can't play nice with the newbie who gung ho because he just discovered it, and oh, say something slightly against one of the "tiki elders" around here and the villagers grab their torches (even if the disparaging remark is true)

Its turned into a board with basically one active moderator, an owner who left, and about a dozen people who consistently post, one of which who is beyond rude. The language on the shout is always terrible, I can't even bring tiki central up on the computer when my daughter is in the room because of the language.

People got sick of the hypocrisy. Someone posts a vintage Philippine wood carved Ku mug. "hey look i found a tiki mug"....the response they get is basically "its tourist trash" "its not tiki"....yet everyone is super excited about a Steampunk munktiki mug or a Krampus mug and NOBODY says "hey, thats not tiki".
They come on to sell an item...they get bashed, "introduce yourself...leaching off us".... but if you have a name in the business, only come on here to promote and sell....nobody says a word. Regular People are tired of it.

Tiki central has had some incredible stuff posted over the years by some incredible people.
I've been here since it was a Yahoo message board... and not a day goes by I don't check in to read new posts, but Lately, not a day goes by I don't say out loud, "why do I still come here?"

Currently, if it wasn't for a handful of people...(for example) Hang10 and Buzzy posting their awesome finds and Dusty posting some great historical stuff, I wouldn't even bother.

[ Edited by: ErichTroudt 2016-02-04 09:21 ]

Damn Erich, you hit the nail on the head with a sledgehammer.

Wow. Erich just posted what I feel like a LOT of people are feeling.
Thank you Erich.

I miss what this place used to be.

Maybe we need to "adapt with the times" I.e. Facebook, Twitter etc....but isn't a large part of tiki meant to be "longing for the past?"

Mr. Troudt,

Enjoyed the specifics of your post regarding what Tiki has morphed into which I concur is NOT really Tiki. TC got me started years ago and I plan to enjoy all the time, effort & money I've spent on Tiki while I'm still above grade. Ragbag used the words in his post "for the moment" which is what life is. (-:

I also agree with woofmut, the prices of junk mugs on the shelves of antique stores is way up. You can't buy a $1 mug anymore or even a $5 PMP.

When I did the first Hukilau in 2002, a friend in ATL said he saw the flier and asked, isn't the Tiki thing dead?

Now to derail this...

Getting long in the tooth and many of us are, I have started to think about death. What will happen to my websites when I am gone? Even if I paid for 20 years of domain registrations and hosting, shit happens and I have to put on my tech support hat now and again and no one will be around to do that.

Then I thought about TC and the wealth of info here. What happens when Hanford is gone? Will TC disappear within a few years? All this gone in an instant?

Modern problems.

And I am also trying to figure out what to do with all the research I have on the Mai-Kai and Donn Beach. I want to do another book after the Mai-Kai book. I dream of a complete biography of Donn. But I have stuff that no one on earth has and it should not stay on my computer and in my plastic bins. Hopefully I can give it to the right historical society at some point, but when? And do I plan for that now? My wife wouldn't know what's what on my computer.

I didn't plan to do a book, but in lots of ways, it is the culmination of over a decade absorbing everything from TC and the community. Gotta empty the bucket. Then I'll unfriend everyone on FB and stop coming here and sit by myself in my home bar and gripe about everything.... With skip... And toast Tiki David...

“If it wasn't for Hang10 and Buzzy posting their awesome finds and Dusty posting some great historical stuff, I wouldn't even bother.”

Dusty joined in 2007, hang10tiki 2010, buzzy 2006,
You did not even mention Sabu The Coconut Boy who has posted tons of info, and started in 2002!
And my thread on the Kahiki (2005) was started years before many of the ones you sited even joined TC.

“sit by myself in my home bar and gripe about everything.... With skip... And toast Tiki David...”

Who me, gripe? Why I’m down right cheerful.
Sounds good Tim I’m in on that.

I have tried not to be as mean on TC.
But it is hard to do when posts like ErichTroudt totally dismiss all the good one has added
To TC over the years, and dam you started in 2002 so you should have known better.
See that all the time here on TC too.

I for one don’t get paid to show how to make lights, share all my Kahiki stuff, give footage to
The DVD of tiki only to be, oppps left off the credits.
Well I did get two bottles of Havana Club rum for that one.
AND add stuff to Svens books, only to be burned on that too.

I've been here since it was a Yahoo message board... and not a day goes by I don't check in to read new posts, and not a day goes by I don't say out loud, "why do I still come here?"

You can say that again!

The world made me this way.

On 2016-02-04 06:40, Swanky wrote:
Then I'll unfriend everyone on FB and stop coming here and sit by myself in my home bar and gripe about everything.... With skip... And toast Tiki David...

Dude... Send an invite over the Smokies, would ya!

Lurker here... You guyz are contradicting each other, stepping all over each others toes and comments, and just whining. Theres a lot of good here among some bad, the good way outweighs it all, otherwise I wouldnt' waste my time here.

This tiki board blows away the facebooks, twitter, and all the other bullshit by a mile. You guys are making yourselves look silly, you have the best thing going here bar none.

You're peeing in your own pool! Get over it and move on!

Okay, I actually have a response to the original question of this thread. Fair warning: this may get rambly.

I think tiki buying ebbs and flows with the economy, as do most things. Personally, when I discovered there was actually a tiki "scene" and there were other people who were into tiki even more than I (because I didn't know it was really a "thing" anymore), I started snapping up all the mugs I could cheaply get my hands on. Living in the SF Bay Area at the time and being a single woman paying my own bills, I couldn't spend as much as I'd like to get a lot of the highly-sought vintage mugs, so I got the Tiki Farms and a few Munktikis because that's what I could afford. I went overboard on eBay buying anything I thought looked cool, regardless of the history. I'm obsessive like that.

Then I ran out of space.

Collecting takes up a lot of room, and living in small 1-bdrm apartments makes it difficult to display everything and I'm not a believer of collecting things I can't see and enjoy on a regular basis. I started focusing my buying on mugs from venues I've actually visited, or historic mugs from places I love like the Tonga Room in San Francisco or Trader Vic's in Emeryville. Eventually I began selling off some of the mugs I acquired during my initial buying frenzy to make room to really appreciate the mugs I truly loved. I still have well over a hundred mugs, but most of them actually mean something to me, and I can see all of them at once after having several boxes of them that never got opened in my last two homes.

When I started collecting, some of the vintage mugs that I actually wanted were going for hundreds of dollars. Then when the economy crashed, I noticed nobody was willing to pay those prices anymore. We all got a little more selective about where our hard-earned dollars were going. As my rent went up faster than my income, my willingness to spend $80-$120 on a favorite artist's new creation, no matter how much I wanted it, diminished greatly. I think that happened to a lot of people. Now the economy is recovering and people are no longer as scared about whether or not they'll have jobs tomorrow. But being careful with how you spend your money is a hard habit to break once you've been doing it a while. So I think it may be a few more years before folks get comfortable spending so much on "frivolous" purchases again.

Now I've moved across the country and my cost of living has dropped significantly, so for the first time in my life I have discretionary income. But I've chosen to spend it on travel, experiences, and yes, booze, rather than more mugs that I don't personally connect to. Plus I can always just pop over the mountains to Swanky's place if I want to look at vintage Steve Crane and Mai Kai mugs. :)

My love of tiki has also evolved into a love of good cocktails and rum. I was lucky enough to live close to Forbidden Island and Smuggler's Cove, so I've been drinking really good tiki drinks for the past 10 years. I started learning about rum and the other ingredients necessary to make good tiki drinks. That led me to other spirits and other classic cocktails that weren't necessarily tiki drinks. Now that I live in a tiki-less part of the country with really stupid liquor laws, I have to make my own drinks at home if I want something I'll really enjoy. So I buy cocktail ingredients and barware instead of tiki mugs (that I rarely use for drinking).

There are still a few vintage mugs I would like to have, and if I happen to see them at a good price I might buy them, but I'd rather have a $125 bottle of a great sipping rum that I can enjoy and share with (really good) friends, than a mug that sits on a crowded shelf serving no purpose other than decoration that my guests will never appreciate.

On 2016-02-04 07:28, HarryAnise wrote:
Lurker here... You guyz are contradicting each other, stepping all over each others toes and comments, and just whining. Theres a lot of good here among some bad, the good way outweighs it all, otherwise I wouldnt' waste my time here.

This tiki board blows away the facebooks, twitter, and all the other bullshit by a mile. You guys are making yourselves look silly, you have the best thing going here bar none.

You're peeing in your own pool! Get over it and move on!

Such a big opinion for a lurker. This is healthy discussion, rather than contradiction. If those who've posted on this thread believed TC to be all bad, we wouldn't bother posting at all, and certainly not on this particular thread. Sure there's a little negativity and pupu-ing (see what I did there), but most of the folks who've posted on this thread actually care about TC and have been swimming in this pool for quite some time. Pee and all! Those who really have "gotten over it" have, in fact, moved on already. The rest of us still see some value in conversation, which is what we're having here.

Skip, your post made me realize that the last few lines of my post could have been written clearer. I edited my post. You may not like it any better, but at least now I don't feel like I'm misrepresenting my thoughts.
Thanks for pointing some things out.

Erich

I'm not much of a mug guy but I do know this mug shot up in price for some odd reason. :wink:
( and actually there were only 250 made)

http://www.ooga-mooga.com/cgi-bin/all/mug.cgi?mode=view&mug_id=3127

For TC not being popular now days too hard to see on my iphone. :wink:

HarryAnise wrote:

You're peeing in your own pool! Get over it and move on!

NOW Harry I wanted to think you were a ANISE guy, but look at it this way with too much piss in the pool we add more chlorine & keep on talking while sipping some rum.

my feeling on the prices dropping some is that it's cyclical - it seems to me the trend right now is for brand new, short run mugs that we know only 25 or so were produced - if someone is going to drop a couple hundo on a mug, they might take a chance on getting 1/25 than a vintage one that may be easier to come by - just like any other collectible, the truly hard to find ones (vintage or otherwise) are going to stay fairly stable - the more common ones (including vintage) are going to find their true market value, but may see spikes due to popularity at the moment

This is a great conversation. I am one of the people who is guilty of spending way too much time lurking and not nearly enough time posting.

I am grateful to all the people on here that do post regularly, and absorb as much as I can – reading all new stuff religiously, and when there is no new stuff, trawling through the ancient, forgotten threads for the gems. And truly, there are many gems! Big ups to all the members of TC past and present who made that happen.

But it does feel a bit “leachy”. Like EnchantedTikiGoth (hello fellow Albertan!), I live in a tiki-barren wasteland where it really is hard to contribute more to the discussions . While once we had bars up here, they regrettably were before my time, and all the artifacts from the local tiki places end up in the collections of people with much deeper pockets than I have. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed much of a shift in prices up here, so much as a total absence of tiki mugs. Where once I was finding neat little items weekly in thrift shops, I haven’t found anything in about 8 months. I try to support local bars that have made attempts to provide passable tiki cocktails – even if they aren’t tiki places at all – but that’s nothing worth posting about.

What I am trying to say is two-fold: One, I would love to contribute more if only I knew how. And two, (warning this gets mushy) TC is a refuge – a place where I can come, find myself a cozy dimly-lit corner of the room and spend my time exploring the archaeology of all those who tread this way before me. Maybe every once in a while venturing out of the darkness to poise a query to the wonderful, creative and knowledgeable experts here. And for all intents and purposes, the people here seem reasonably well behaved in my mind (and I say this as a mild mannered Canadian stereotype), and genuinely bring a wonderful diversity to the community. I am grateful to everybody and anybody in this community who manages to take time out of their busy lives to enrich this site a little bit more. Even the criticism (while sometimes coming off a tad harsh) is important. It reminds us that the history of (real) tiki is something worth preserving. Sometimes I wonder if, without someone reminding where the line in the sand is drawn, some misguides souls might be looking at today’s Party City Tiki as the antiques of tomorrow.

I once asked someone in a tiki bar what they loved about tiki, and I often think about their response. They said what they loved most about it is that everyone can love something different about tiki – some people love cocktails and they love creating and finding out all they can about rums and ingredients and the history of the drinks. Some people know all about carving and where different types of statues come from and what they represent. Some people are avid music collectors, or musicians playing and sometimes creating new music. Some people are all about mugs and can regale you with all sorts of information of where they came from and various glazes and designs. People can be fully immersed in the history of tiki, some concerned with what happens now and in the future of tiki. I am still new enough to this that I am not sure where I fit – but without this site, I wouldn’t have even known where to start!

Swanky’s concern about what happens if TC were to disappear within years or an instant is a terrifying thought.

HarryAnise easy to say with four posts and no pic's to date.
Get back to us after ten years and lots of time and effort adding to TC all for not.

Captainwhoopass Ha! I saw that name and thought Dam this is going to be good!
While not the whoopass post I thought it would be you just added to TC.
That is something.

Plus I know of people who come and or used to post on TC they only come now to sell and or promote events ect.
Some of these people know tons about music stuff they could add here.

Another guy sent me pic's of some lights he made, they are awesome! he could add those.

Another person has found Kahiki stuff they don't want to add so other people won't
know what to look for.

And dam, what about those events? you post "hey come to our event" and then don't follow up with photos of said event?

They say "I don't go to TC anymore" but they sure do jump on seconds after a post they don't like hits the boards.

Pay it forward people.

On 2016-02-03 22:20, ErichTroudt wrote:

Shift in priorities played a big part too. In the early days, tiki was all about collecting...matchbooks, mugs, menus, actual pieces from the restaurants. Then came a HUGE emphasis on drinking. It became all about the drinks, mixing, this rum, blah blah blah. People spending way more money on the drink side instead of decorations or collecting.

From my point of view tiki has ALWAYS been about drinking. Am I wrong in saying that without drinking there would be no tiki as it is today? Bamboo Ben once said (not in so many words) that tiki bars make their money by selling booze. Without rum and tiki drinks, tiki would have never kicked off into a mainlanders view of island life. Certainly we would have no tiki mugs. There are very few examples of tiki places that do not center around drinks, Tiki Gardens is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. There are only a few examples of people making tiki rooms in their houses or at their jobs that don't center around bars, that is why the section of TC is called "Home Tiki Bars."

When I joined TC, I didn't expect to ever start posting. Chat rooms were something that I never liked to do. I didn't use any other social media either. My mug collecting got so out of hand :wink: that I signed up for TC so that I could get mugs I couldn't find anywhere else. No one was ever rude to me, but it did take some time for people to warm up to me. Now I have made countless friends from this forum and I check it all the time.

I really got into rum collecting as well. I generally have 100+ bottles of rum at my house these days. I liked the "What are you drinking right now" thread by Bongo Bungalow so much that I made an Instagram account dedicated to just that (thirstythursdayssd). That never meant that it was all about the booze for me. I have tikis in my bar from famous and not so famous carvers. I have scoured the country and the internets to find the right pieces of art for my tiki bar. I have lamps and art from defunct tiki bars in my home bar. My wife and I like the art of tiki so much that it is already spilling out of our bar and into our home.

I currently have over 300 tiki mugs and not enough space for them. I mostly collect the newer mugs and not the vintage. Old tiki mugs from resturants that were closed before I was born just don't hold the same kind of feel to me as the newer ones do. I like and certainly want some of the rare vintage mugs, but my mug collecting is slowing way down. I would have loved to own that Forbidden Island volcano bowl that was just on ebay, but it was not in my budget at the time.

I don't think tiki is in any jeopardy of going away anytime soon, but I think it is in danger of geting watered down and diluted. If more and more bars start to concentrate on tiki drinks with no other aspects, we will loose what makes these bars tiki to us. That is why TC is still essential, we need to know the history so that we can teach what tiki means to us. If we sit back and watch a bunch of bars open with no decor and ultra-sweet umbrella drinks, we are going to have another decline. It happened in the past, how do we stop the same thing from happening again?

Good points, Skip.

I'm definitely guilty of doing stuff and not posting it... I guess I always assume anything
I have to share has probably already been shared here a hundred times over.

But... like I say, we've been at this Tiki thing more than 10 years, so the accumulations have certainly piled up across the board... not only mugs (last count there are at least 300 here)
and Witco, but PNG stuff, lamps, records, drink recipes, you name it.

Being in the center of the country, there are not a ton of events we make it to (we've
been to Tiki Oasis and Hukilau twice each) but there's still fun stuff going on, regardless.

We haven't been buying as much as we used to (space and finances) but I'll consider this
a call to post more stuff when we do find things, or go places.

Once we start our bar build (just barely getting things prepped now), you can bet that'll
be a lot to keep on top of.

--Pete

I hesitate to post this, because certain people on this forum basically made me feel no longer welcome, but since it has the bearing on the subject of people defecting to FB instead of here, I will go ahead and add my two cents:
The problem with tiki central (and any forum, really) is that there is and always has been a “herd mentality”. If you don’t share the same feelings and opinions as the majority you are made to feel unwelcome.

Take my own case, for example. I started posting in 2003 (under username Tiki Mick) and started right away with the same opinionated comments I also make around my own friends on facebook and in person.
Instantly, I was judged as being negative. People automatically assumed I had some sort of malicious intent. But my motivation was strictly to find “like minds” to converse with, and I was surprised that there were none! I admit, it took me over 11 years or so to finally figure it out, which is also why I stopped posting.
For me, I am a bit of a tiki purist, especially when it comes to the music aspect of it. I was constantly amazed at what I found on this forum: People very strictly into authentic mugs and tiki bars, but absolutely not liking Hawaiian music and probably not even really liking exotica. Post after post showed people would be adamant about using the exact ingredients used in a Trader Vic’s 1950’s era Mai-Tai, and then would poo-poo the type of music trader Vic himself probably listened to.

Garage rock, punk, surf. These are the most popular types of music I found that people like on this forum.
As I always considered Tiki to be an offshoot of cocktail lounge culture, NOT low-brow custom care culture, I often clashed with far too many people here. The tiki world tilts very heavily towards Low-Brow/hot rod culture.

So when, for example, I posted about not liking the beatles, it was NOT to stir the pot. I was generally surprised to find my posts ridiculed, since to me 1964 was a turning point in cocktail culture. Out with the old, in with the new and don’t trust anyone over 30. I honestly expected to find a larger amount of people that also liked everything before 1964, before rock, before garage and surf. People who understood the difference between youth culture and the Eisenhower generation.
I felt that everything I was arguing was also contained in the Book of Tiki. The iconic image In Sven’s book of the cocktail party, the midcentury people wearing Hawaiian shirts and eating pupus, who had probably spent the day working at the mad men advertising agency, was something I thought was very cool.
Turns out, a large amount of tiki people reject that iconography in favor of punk /tatts/garage rock/hot rod imagery.
I saw tiki central every day moving farther away from what I thought was tiki.

So, as regards facebook, I think everything seeks its own level. FB allows me to converse with the few like- minded individuals I first met here, without the butthurt. They know who they are.

As regards unfriendly posters chasing newbies away, one thing people need to understand: I went back and looked at some of my more combative posts from the old days. I found that there were other combative people who were also very negative, and argumentative, and opinionated calling ME a troll. Isn’t that a case of the kettle calling the pot black? Time and time again, the same names would come up. And the people I was tangling with were people that in many cases I had never met in person, but who were totally rude and unpleasant to me as though I had fucked their sister, instead of just arguing whether the grateful dead is tiki or not. It was that level of animosity that drove me away, and probably drives others away.

So when someone like “swizzle” calls ATP or myself a troll, maybe he should look at his own disruptive behavior. I never even met Swizzle! For all I know, he could be a great guy in person but I will never know. That is something to consider.

Bay park Buzzy and Grog both asked me to leave this forum. Bay park Buzzy. Never even met the guy! Don’t know why my opinions meant so much to him! Grog? I thought we were cool. When he was having his health issues, I was genuinely worried and concerned, and sent positive thoughts out for him. Yet my posts about the Beatles were enough to make him tell me to leave.

In a nutshell, different opinions are ok. We should not be chasing people away because you don’t agree with them. Look at the end result: One less tiki central member. Hate me or love me, I was a steady contributor since the old days. And when I was not telling you why the beatles sucked, I was posting funny crap (at least funny to me) and informative stuff about music that many people probably were not aware of. I was supporting other bands and other artists with positive comments. I did my own urban archeology. I discussed forgotten theme parks. I contributed my fair share. And by chasing me away, you lost a lot of that.
So now, I stay on facebook because if I post something, only people who like me talk about it with me. That’s the advantage, but it is a closed off world. And, I don’t want to see tiki central ever disappear. I freaking love this forum, and I love tiki. And I learned a lot about stuff I did not know about it.

It’s really simple. If you want this forum to continue, just learn to ignore the posts you don’t agree with, and move on. Spirited conversation is perfectly fine. Even negative critiques of things are fine. Being exclusive, rude, cold and clique-ish is not.

[ Edited by: lucas vigor 2016-02-04 13:04 ]

On 2016-02-04 11:26, Thortiki wrote:
HarryAnise wrote:
You're peeing in your own pool! Get over it and move on!

NOW Harry I wanted to think you were a ANISE guy, but look at it this way with too much piss in the pool we add more chlorine & keep on talking while sipping some rum.

Good reply, thanks Thortiki. I am a nice guy, and I got a bit agitated by how fast some here are jumping all over the negative sides of Tiki Central. If they are so quick to piss all over tiki central, then why do they hang around? It came across as very two faced and insincere to me and got me to post.

On 2016-02-04 12:12, tikiskip wrote:
HarryAnise easy to say with four posts and no pic's to date.
Get back to us after ten years and lots of time and effort adding to TC all for not.

Aw hell tikiskip I'll try to post more and with some pics. You make a good point. As a lurker I've been learning from you all even though Ive been very quiet. There is a ton of good here, I just can't see why this whine-fest made so many people want to jump in and piss all over whats really a great system with a ton of great tiki info. It left me scratching my head in disbelief because some of the comments went personal to some of the more outspokein people. I don't want to tick people off but want to interact and lurking has been productive for me. But some of the people here are so stuck in their ruts that I may just continue to lurk and learn and leech without drawing fire from the hotheads.

We're all gonna miss this place when it goes away. Does anyone want me to apologize for defending this place? Ain't gonna happen.

The conversation is getting both heated & a little incendiary now :D

I should address a couple of things ErichTroudt has mentioned in his post:

"Its turned into a board with basically one active moderator, an owner who left, and about a dozen people who consistently post, one of which who is beyond rude. The language on the shout is always terrible, I can't even bring tiki central up on the computer when my daughter is in the room because of the language."

Now this is only my opinion, but Tiki is for adults, the kids have just about everything else in the world, with kid safe/political correctness/everything should be
accessible to my child, world that we live in, Tiki was made for adults, by it's very nature of Bars, cocktails & adult escapism, it was not meant for children!

So if you choose to give your child access to Tiki Central, Tiki events & take them to a Tiki Bar, which is full of adult content, I question your judgement
and can't we adults have just one thing that is just for adults?

Also I am pretty sure you are referring to me, about the use of language (as well as some other things) Yes! I don't check my language here, because I am conversing
with adults about a very un-politically correct time in our history (Tiki) the very thing we are all here for, right? it is why we are attracted to it in the first place.

ErichTroudt, you have been here for many years, have you forgotten just how heated, divisive & negative it used to be here on TC
because it's damn near Woodstock levels of calm today, compared to then, hell, I didn't officially join TC for two years because of what a warzone it was
at the time & new folks were flayed to the bone on a regular basis if they said one thing out of place.

Now this is going to piss off some of you, but collecting mugs/menus and what not, has nothing to do with Tiki (sure it supplements your interest in Tiki, but no one was doing it back in the days of going to Polynesian Bars & Restaurants) just as "Urban Archaeology" is not Tiki! yes I said it! it's not Tiki, it's Academic
which no one was also doing back in the good old days of Tiki!

They just went to a Polynesian Bar or Restaurant for some cocktails & escapism from their post war/working lives, to have a good time
And it was that time in history that draws us all together here.

And that is what Tiki is.

Ragbag Comics you need to start by posting really good clear photos of that Witco lama Bar.

Ha!

I think there are some photos of the Llama buried in the "Show Me Your Witco" thread someplace... We've had him for about six years now, so it might be pretty deep in there.

While we're building out our home bar, we're also taking it as an opportunity to catalog everything we have in terms of Witco, mugs, etc (primarily for insurance purposes) I'll be taking plenty of pictures then and will be sure to share.

On a side note, I would second what Bamboo Ben mentioned... it's so easy to flip through Facebook and take and post photos on the go... TC is, obviously, slightly less mobile-friendly to say the least, which is unfortunate. We took a ton of photos at Tiki Oasis last year, and were posting to FB as we went along, but we didn't have a computer to sit down and upload everything when we were there. By the time we got home, we had kinda spaced on sharing further. I guess that makes us lazy...

But that being said, changing a forum to be app-friendly sure ain't free... with the hundreds and hundreds of hours spent here over the years by everyone and the thousands and thousands of posts and photos, I can't even imagine the Herculean effort it would take to make TC more mobile-friendly and more easily interact-able, not to mention the fact that there isn't really any revenue being generated here to pay for it. It's a labor of love.

Sitting down at a computer, logging in and uploading does have it's own kind of charm to it, though.

--Pete

ATP, I had no intentions of calling out certain individuals for things I mentioned, but if you assume I'm discussing you, lets all take a look at you.

..............."Tiki was made for adults, by it's very nature of Bars, cocktails & adult escapism, it was not meant for children!"

I would think the old "tiki" hotels, theme parks, restaurants might disagree with you. Read thru some of the Locating tiki threads and read memories people share of the old restaurants that the visited when they were a kid, birthday celebrations at the kahiki, mai kai etc that sparked their interest in tiki as an adult. Tiki didn't and doesn't always revolve around drinking and debauchery.

..........."I don't check my language here, because I am conversing
with adults about a very un-politically correct time in our history (Tiki) the very thing we are all here for, "

What part of "Tiki" or History was reflected in your recent shout comment of ...."To whom ever is doing this, Stop fucking my Unicorns! oh the humanity!"
I must Have missed that part of tiki.

Look at the Tiki central posting rules. #2. Be Polite.

Unnecessary rude language isn't polite. It has nothing to do with tiki being for adults...its about certain people not being able or willing to filter themselves for the sake of others. Its unpleasant for some. This isn't a locker room, this isn't public email for your drinking buddies, and its not a clubhouse.

Will you change for the good of tiki central? Will the moderators crack down on poor behavior? Will people like yourself sit back and think "is my post helping Tiki Central?" "Am I bringing something positive to the table?"..... Of course not.

On 2016-02-03 21:12, swizzle wrote:
We have several bars here in Australia that have 'tiki' drinks on the menu

When we stayed at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park last year, we discovered a tropical drink on the menu of the lounge. It was called "A Trip Over the Falls" and I joked to my wife that it needed a Tiki mug of a bear in rum barrel going over a waterfall. Anyways, a rustic lodge in the middle of a Rocky Mountain national park struck me as an odd place for a tropical drink.

On 2016-02-04 11:50, Captainwhoopass wrote:
Like EnchantedTikiGoth (hello fellow Albertan!), I live in a tiki-barren wasteland where it really is hard to contribute more to the discussions . While once we had bars up here, they regrettably were before my time, and all the artifacts from the local tiki places end up in the collections of people with much deeper pockets than I have. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed much of a shift in prices up here, so much as a total absence of tiki mugs. Where once I was finding neat little items weekly in thrift shops, I haven’t found anything in about 8 months.

Hi! :D

I always check out Whyte Knight when I'm up there. It's only ever the new stuff, which might get trying if you actually live up there. For me, it works out pretty well. The last time I was there (for a conference at the Chateau Lacombe, which once upon a time had their own specialty mugs for the circle lounge at the top), I picked up a mug I had been wanting for a while AND they had an Armada Geddon in stock. Had to explain to my wife why (and how) I was coming back from Edmonton with a $100 ceramic sunken ship, but it was worth it!

For bars though... yeah... At least the chocolate monkey-type drink at Jungle Jim's in WED is good. Apparently it was shocking that I completely polished off a Headhunter burger too. It's tacky tropical, but I suppose it's something. Plus it's the only original front left on Bourbon Street, which is nostalgic for me.

ErichTroudt,

No, I just think you are being hyper politically correct
you can live your life anyway you want, but if you expect everyone else to follow your example
you are really in for a major disappointment in life.

You and I have very different ideas of the definition of rudeness, welcome to America
I like to refer to it as colorful :lol:

"What part of "Tiki" or History was reflected in your recent shout comment of ...."To whom ever is doing this, Stop fucking my Unicorns! oh the humanity!"
I must Have missed that part of tiki."

Well Unicorns that are sexually assaulted don't make rainbows, without rainbows, there is no love & joy in the world
and that fucking sucks!

All your child friendly Tiki destinations are post 1960, I know first hand, still not my idea of a Tiki Bar from the 40s & 50s.

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2016-02-04 16:24 ]

Well, the devolution of tiki came with painting tikis bright colors.... so I guess its fitting the devolution of Tiki Central come with "colorful" talk of rainbows and unicorns.

Congrats on making tiki central exactly what you want it to be.... It's just too bad its caused so many to leave, others to stay away, and others to wonder why its so dead around here.

"Where those merry souls who make drinking a pleasure -
Who achieve contentedness long before capacity
And who, whenever they drink, prove able to carry it, enjoy it,
And remain gentlemen." - Trader Vic

"Stop fucking my Unicorns!" - ATP

:roll:

Atomic Tiki Punk,

No. Erich is just asking for a little decorum and to follow the rules of the house. It's not a good idea to come over to a friend's place and take a crap in the middle of the living room like you so often do.