Found tiki stuff in attic...how do I value this stuff?

Sorry to intrude...we think tiki is totally cool, but it doesn't quite go with the 1920's bungalow look going on.

Anyway, we bought this house and the owner left a ton of stuff. And friends and neighbors are interested in buying things. Most things are easy enough to research but the tiki stuff is hard. I asked them to make me an offer but they want me to give them a price and I want to be completely fair...so how do I value these things? Is there a book on vintage Tiki collectibles that gives values or something?

I think the stuff I'm thinking of would be "tiki". We have about 5 huge and wide woven grass and bamboo shades that roll up and 3 mugs made of bamboo that are carved (kind of kitschy) and a box full of mint woven grass coasters from Bermuda, etc. The family owned the house for 3 generations and kept EVERYTHING. So, along with the cool stuff, a bunch of dirt and rocks too. Not so fun.

Amazingly, the cool stuff is pretty well preserved. (They have unopened boxes of things they bought. They never let sunlight in the house. Etc.) Although they didn't keep up the house, they used their millions (yup, they were loaded) to travel all over the world. A couple of times. Since the 1900's. It is very overwhelming in here. I went through their papers first and travel records. It looks like they went to Bermuda in the 30's (during the Depression. We even have photos from that trip.) They were in Jamaica and Hawaii in the '50's. They were in Asia and Polynesia from the 1920's through the 60's...so that is less helpful. I really am having to research those things.

Any help you can give would be great. We are just trying to get everything off of 2 of the floors so we can work on the plumbing and electric. That would be a big start. Thanks.

Aloha,
None of the items you mentioned would really be considered tiki. Mugs from old Polynesian restaurants, hawaiian artifacts, masks from the South Seas, these are tiki. Did you unearth anything of that nature?

Ditto. Needs to be South Pacific. Advice from a 20-year veteran antique dealer: Price it like you see it. Value is subjective. To calculate worth-take exactly as much as the person that wants it is willing to pay and average it with what you are comfortable with. You can usually sense when something really is "something", but don't waste time coveting it if it's obviously not..it's not worth it. Bet you got some neat other stuff, though!

Thanks cool tiki people! :) We do have a few things from Hawaii but only a few. We think.

If you want to gawk at the stuff in here (it's pretty funny sometimes), check out the "What On Earth?!" section of the website I'm sending you to. We are trying now to sell to friends first...there really are too many things to fit in the garage and we are uncomfortable opening up the house for an estate sale when we are living on the first floor.

Unless you have a really fast connection, try to avoid opening up the entire "What On Earth" archive all at once. There are a lot of photos. I started cataloging this stuff for the entertainment of my relatives back East and to vent. It is nuts. We get a lot of web traffic since the website got passed around. It's kinda grown out of our control at the moment. agh.

http://www.houseinprogress.net/archives.html

Bk is right. Antiques, collectibles and even junk has a food chain. No one can possibly know what all the stuff from an estate is worth to the "Tee". It moves up the ladder (or down) with each transaction. Ebay is a great resource for finding what people really pay for specific items. I've done a number of home rennovations for resale, and some of the homes we bought with the contents intact. I held back the few items that I felt needed to go directly to dealers first but blew the rest out in full blown Estate Sales. It's a blast, and you learn alot. Whatever we were overpriced on went out the door Sunday on the halfprice or bag sale. The rest got donated to Goodwill. We got so hooked on the process we ended up opening our own secondhand, vintage and collectible shop for awhile. It was the best time I ever had making a living.
Good Luck !!

I'll be honest. The thought of an estate sale makes me more nervous than you can ever imagine. And shipping these through eBay would be impossible. There are thousands of things in here...it is nuts! Meanwhile, we have found two critical historical pieces that, tagged in an estate sale, would have been tossed around. Museum donation level. And, because of their world travels, one estate appraiser couldn't cover it. The variety of stuff is boggling. It could be worth something or nothing. And we don't expect to get 100% of its value. What I find, I've been tagging down to 1/3 of the price for a friend or family member who is interested.

Though for these stranger, travel-related items, you're right. I actually don't care what we get for them...they are going to a friend. I think my sense of extreme fairness and not wanting to be in a confrontation makes me a horrible seller anyway :) I offered to give him some things and we had this little back and forth "No, I couldn't!","Well, why not?","Oh no! I insist on paying you saomething!" that made me feel weird and uncomfortable. It's been a relief to point to something, say "Okay then, give me a third of that." Everyone is happy. (I think because everyone knows the amount of work this house will take to renew, they are extra sensitive to the situation we're in. Which makes them lovely friends...and not estate sale customers :)

Hey Now,

What a great adventure you are on! The thrill of discovery without ever leaving your house. I'm envious but glad that it's not me. I've been doing something similar but on a much smaller scale. For the last ten years my Father brings me a number of boxes several times a year that are packed with many assorted items. This trickle sometimes seems overwhelming. I can only imagine what you are going through. My personal favorite from the pictures are the stone carvings from Easter Island (14th Batch, Item #7). The Moai have been calling me for decades and someday I will answer. All your hard work will be worth it in the end as your bungalow is beautiful! Keep on digging and then get on with the work that must follow. :)

[ Edited by: Midway Cafe on 2003-09-24 03:27 ]

How funny that you found the Easter Island carvings! They were there sometime in the 1940's or 1950's. We also found a blowgun that is possibly from "Borneo" (connected to Malaysia?) That was a hoot because I thought without looking closly at first that they were a bundle of fighting weaponry from Japan. It was only when I looked closely that we deciphered the label the owner had attached to them. He used to give presentations at local schools about his travels...we've heard lots of interesting stories about him though I have never met him. We bought the house from his daughter...