Total chance tiki treasure trove encounter!

Recently I needed to buy some assorted used tools and things for a job, and went searching around on the net for something near me in Los Angeles. Some guy I found was selling tools out of his house, so I called him up and set up a meeting. His prices sounded reasonable. So the next morning I drive into this fellow's area and immediately notice there's a lot of old motels in the area. A 50's suburb with lots of old buildings, right? "I sure would like to take pictures of these motel signs," I think. So I get to this guy's house, say hello, shake hands with him, et cetera, and he opens his garage up and I see a bunch of tools and also other things, including some tribal carvings and a tiki. Holy moley, I think, and suddenly I'm wondering if he'll sell his old tiki to me. "That's a neat statue there!" I say. "I like tiki stuff."

"Oh yeah, I got more of that, here, follow me," he says, and takes me into his other garage, and on the wall, lots of tribal carvings of different cultures, and on shelves, more tiki statues. A good lot of them! This guy ain't selling no tiki statues to me, I realize, and that's for damn sure.

"Bwahhhhhh! Buuuuahhhh!" I say. "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! You like tiki stuff too, I see." He seems rather bored with my excitement. "Oh yes, I love that stuff," he says patiently. "Say," I say, "do you mind if I come back here and photograph these things? These are some beautiful statues you've got here." "No, no, I'd prefer not to, but if you want to buy more tools, you can come back in here," he tells me. "Sure," I say. I realize that I'll need more tools soon and that I'll have to call this dude.

And this fellow I went to out of goodness knows how many people who I found looking for used tools outlets. Total luck and chance! Anything like this ever happen to some of you people here??

Very cool story.
Wonder why he's so reluctant to have pics made?

I've had a lot of stuff like that happen to me, too. (ME TOO ME TOO!!)

Here's one of my favorites out of like, 4 or so I've posted on buried in the archives somewhere.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5542&forum=1

I came across what I think might be a very large ________ by _________ but the owners of it didn't want me to even mention it to anyone (I figured that meant specifically saying "Miss Piggy and Kermit have this HUGE _______ _______ in their Zen Room!" so this vague reference doesn't count. But in case I seem less trustworthy, I obscured the object even further. And no: It's no one on TC who owns the _______.)

On another visit, procinema29, you should take the Book of Tiki along and show the guy. Maybe after he knows your a decent person you can ask again about photography for the purpose of documentation/sharing with the Tiki community. Give him absolute assurance of his privacy. If the photos are still a no go he may have some stories of his collecting.

On 2006-05-29 13:20, pablus wrote:
Very cool story.
Wonder why he's so reluctant to have pics made?
/quote]

..cause the stuff is probably stolen or illegal contraband from the hawaiian islands.....you should see if that large tiki corresponds to any that have turned up stolen over the past few years...and there have been a few.....people with alot of tiki on hand and no apparent ties to tiki -past or present, are usually suspect.....if he had an old tiki room in his house from years back, that's one thing...or if he shared your initial enthusiam for tiki, he would have seemed a kindred spirit and that's another thing.....but this spooky thing he has going rings kinda wierd........

i'll bet that next time you show up for tools....all that tiki stuff will no longer be around....he will have mysteriously gotten rid of it....especially that now he knows your into it and may be able to identify it.....

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2006-05-30 05:12 ]

Well, sure, all those theories are correct, in a way, even the half-joking ones. Consider it this way, possibly...some fellow shows up whom he doesn't know, presumably to buy some of his used goods, but then the guy starts getting goofy over some of his other art type stuff, which he's been collecting for years and obviously values very highly. (I figure this guy is a serious tiki-nut, not part of a fandom community but very dedicated.) Anyway this shmo (me) suddenly wants to come over with a camera and take pictures of his valuable stuff. For what purpose? He doesn't know, so better to be discouraging, politely.

It seemed to me that the guy may have been born in 1950 or around there, and grown up (in that suburb?) with tiki as the primary decadent lifestyle, and it brings to him warm memories of his kooky childhood days. The area of Los Angeles I was in looked like it might have been a swingin' place back in the day, based on the motels I saw. There was a lot of Googie...that was an interesting morning! I had barely had my coffee and here were all these things......