Whaddya think about posting Tiki Finds individually?

Hey gang--

Perhaps it's just me, but I feel that with so many modern tiki items available, the Collecting Tiki section has become dominated by posts with the word "Spencer's" or "Target" in the subject line. That's all well & good--some people are interested in non-vintage items, or else the posts wouldn't be there--but personally I'm more interested in learning about PolyPop history through the vintage items. Vintage items mostly get posted in the massive Tiki Finds thread, which isn't conducive to discussion of an individual item.

What would you guys think about locking the Tiki Finds thread (and pinning it so it stays up top for reference, like was done in Creating Tiki), and encouraging new threads to be created when you score a cool vintage item? This seemed to work very well in Creating Tiki, and sparked a lot more discussion about carving, in particular.

Your thoughts?

I agree, I like to read the stories and tidbits that a vintage item can generate too.

I don't think that I'd post many of my finds if the Tiki Finds thread was locked. I wouldn't feel that they were worthy of starting a new post. Say I find a mug like a vintage Mr Bali Hai. It's fun to say "Hey look what I found for $5 at Saver's" since it is a quite a coup to find something like that in Florida plus it would tick Flounder off. But I'd never start a new post for finding a Bali Hai since everyone already knows what they are and many people have them. I find a Zombie Village mug, however, I will start a new thread whether the Tiki Finds thread is locked or not! Or if I found something unusual or that I have a question about, I'd start a new thread like I did with my "Leeteg" of dubious authenticity.

In Creating Tiki the opposite effect is sort of taking place in these new threads that are theme based (moai, marquesan, shrunken head etc). People (myself included) are posting things that they've created because it fits the theme. I'd never start a thread to post my crappy creations otherwise.

I think there are so many Target/Spencers threads because its something people can actually share. Especially for people who live outside of tiki rich areas (ie the entire world outside of California and Hawaii/South Pacific). Someone finding a Witco fountain is nice and all but it doesn't impact me personally. Lissette EsQui finding Tiki Farm mugs at Marshalls for $3 is useful info for me and many others!

Just my long-winded way of saying I'd like to see the Tiki Finds thread stay open for business. :)

EDIT: I only count 11 threads out of 50 on page one that are about retail chain tiki. That's not too bad is it?

[ Edited by: Kono on 2004-08-01 18:45 ]

It would be fun to discuss vintage items if I could FIND vintage items!A lot of my tiki goodies have been found because of the nice folks who post here,and let everyone know that stores that are pretty to common to most of us HAVE tiki treasures.Let's keep the thread open.

[ Edited by: TNTiki on 2004-11-06 17:05 ]

I have to agree strongly with what has been stated above. There are already plenty of threads for folks to discuss Target/TJ Max/Spencers. In my humble opinion, some people have already statred to post items found in their own topic. The way I take it is that "Hey, my find is more important and thus I should start my own thread". I love to see when new things are posted in the tiki finds thread and in most cases unique/vintage/amazing finds are discussed throughly.

After thinking a bit about this...and looking at the collecting threads....I think the better question to ask is how to "limit" (and I hate to use that word) or what have you about numerous non-vintage threads becoming out of control. In this I mean how often times these types of thread become splintered and ran rampent in the forum while the collecting thread gets pushed down by both of the above mentioned thread types.

[ Edited by: tikisobayli on 2004-08-01 20:12 ]

I agree with humuhumu 100%. I am facinated with the history and would love to not have to search through 50 pages to see other's vintage tiki scores.

Vintage tiki is what brought us all together in the first place. Seems to me that target/spencers etc (cheesy tiki) should be the afterthought, not the other way around.

Just my 2 cents.

I think that I agree with Humuhumu. Isn't this forum section called "Collecting Tiki?" That has always implied collecting vintage "collectibles" to me. As opposed to "Buying Tiki" or "Stumbling Across Mass Produced Tiki."

It is kinda weird seeing new items in the Tiki Finds thread.

Huge Magazine's Tiki Collection, Patterns, Pics and Links: http://www.hugemagazine.com/html/tiki.html

[ Edited by: kingslod on 2004-08-01 21:25 ]

Why not just create a new thread, "Vintage Tiki Finds" and divide the new from the vintage? Wouldn't that keep all happy?

I agree equally with Humu & Kono.

How's that for decisive.

I do think that some finds are just, "hey, look what I found fer a buck, another dozen Leilani's" and they really don't deserve their own topic but it's fun to post anyway. Then there are the Big finds, like the 5ft Tiki I found and I did create a new topic for it.

We could start individual threads such as, "Humuhumu's finds","Flounder's Finds","Kono's Finds that are Better than Flounders'", etc.

Just my 2 Z's

-Z

i understand both sides of the coin, but either way, ill sift thru every thread i can every day to check out all the finds .

On 2004-08-02 10:10, Feelin' Zombified wrote:

We could start individual threads such as, "Humuhumu's finds","Flounder's Finds","Kono's Finds that are Better than Flounders'", etc.

Just my 2 Z's

-Z

I kinda think that this might be the right track if something does have to chage. It has worked really well in the Creating forum I think.
Then people could post whatever in their ind. thread. hOwever it still does not address the vintage/non-vintage problem.

[ Edited by: tikisobayli on 2004-08-02 15:35 ]

This is how the front page breaks down by thread by my count:

Misc (Tiki swap meet, how to display mugs...)
5 threads

New Tiki but not chain store (Hale Tiki, Shag, Disney etc)
8 threads

Retail Chain store tiki (Target etc)
11 threads

Vintage Tiki (incl the Tiki Finds)
11 threads

Ebay
15 threads

I wouldn't mind seeing all the ebay posts go into one thread. (Actually wouldn't mind seeing them go away completely...but I understand some people like them) Especially since the old posts tend to have dead links, dead pic links.

Actually I think everything's pretty hunky dory the way it is. Old tiki, new tiki, it's all good to me.

The question is: Will locking the "Tiki Finds" thread encourage more individual vintage tiki find threads? I don't think it will have a significant effect. I wonder that many who post in the TF thread just won't post at all. It was created as a brag board (see first posting of TF) and is kind of fun for that purpose.

Other boards with mega threads will lock them periodically (like after 20 pages) and start again. For example, "Members Photos 1" followed by 2, 3 and so on. I'd like to see something like that for the TF thread to make it easier to navigate and find what you're looking for (since search function doesn't give you a page).

Now if the real problem is feelings that "there's just too much talk about Target" then I don't know what to tell those of you who feel that way. I just hope this isn't the beginning of a "there's too many new members and things aren't what they used to be" type movement that tends to sprout around here on occasion. :)

Why not just add a forum for Polynesian pop collecting and recent finds?

This way you can keep this forum intact to allow other's to know about a new find, before it gets bought up by Ebay sellers!

I am sure a lot of us love to own vintage items, but can't afford vintage prices!

On 2004-08-02 08:58, Stainless Steel Tiki wrote:
Why not just create a new thread, "Vintage Tiki Finds" and divide the new from the vintage? Wouldn't that keep all happy?

I agree with the new guy, Why not make separate threads:

"Collecting New Tiki" (post your finds in retail stores)

"Collecting vintage Tiki" (post your finds from estate sales, thrift stores, etc."

"Ebay Tiki" (post your finds here... threads will be erased after 90 days, add a picture should be encouraged)

Oh and possibly a Swap Shop area forum.

Just a thought.

-one man aspiring to be everyone’s favorite unkle.
http://www.unklejohn.com

[ Edited by: Unkle John on 2004-08-02 20:23 ]

I believe the whole point that humuhumu was trying to make is that vintage pieces should not be grouped all in one. That way interesting history and discussions can be brought up about different artifacts. By puting everything in one thread I believe we are discouraging discussion.

I understand where people are coming from saying they want to collect things that are easier to find. What I have to say to that is why not support the tiki artists of today. Rather than buy spencer's or target items why not buy items from tiki farm, munktiki, bosko, tiki diablo, gecko or many others. There is a huge amount of exceptional art out there.

vw

Tiki Finds has always been one of my favorite topics and I would hate to have to scrounge through the rest of the collecting tiki to keep up with everyone's lastest thrift and antique finds - I say keep it in one topic - I'd have to agree that many of my tiki finds are not worthy of their own topic and I feel like they wouldn't capture much attention! Personally I just avoid those topics that include the words Marshall's, Target, etc. - when I want to hear about everyone's vintage finds I go right to Tiki Finds!

I definitely don't have any interest in decreasing the discussion of new items--I'll say it again, I know these items are of interest to a number of people, or else the posts wouldn't be there. I'm only thinking of ways to stimulate more discussion of the vintage items, and I'm sure no one here would say that vintage items are discussed too heavily.

The point about the casualness of the Tiki Finds thread is well taken. I can understand the desire to put up a simple brag post. Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of any vintage items that are truly not worth discussing--they all have a history, who made it, where it came from, who purchased it... these are the things that make vintage items so interesting, and why it's frustrating to me to see things in Tiki Finds that I would love to hear more about.

Kono, if you don't mind my using your example: You can't assume that everyone knows what a Mr. Bali Hai mug is--new people are joining us all the time. Plus, there are things I don't know about Mr. Bali Hai--what is the name of the person who designed him? What company manufactured him? What year was he first introduced? What is the difference between the concave & flat-based ones? Where did your particular Mr. Bali Hai go home to--did you find it in a thrift shop in San Diego, or did he manage to trek to Chicago?

Buying one single Mr. Bali Hai probably doesn't justify its own thread, but a thread focused just on Mr. Bali Hai discussion with multiple brag posts and the opportunity to discuss the history a little about a type of mug or other item makes sense to me. That way, every time someone wants to brag about a Mr. Bali Hai purchase, it bumps up the thread, provides another view of the mug (all mugs differ at least a little), renews the discussion of the mug, and educates people who didn't know the history. Some of these threads already exist, and my thought was that by locking Tiki Finds, hopefully it wouldn't stop the brag posts, but encourage the brag posts to just go in more focused threads with room for discussion. That's what happened in Creating Tiki--after locking the Carving Post thread, people started posting more about carvings, not less.

Is it possible to take the idea of three separate threads one step further and make three "sub-forums" instead, each with their own threads about individual items?

A "Vintage Tiki Finds" sub-forum could have threads about Mr. Bali Hai, Tiki Bob, and so on; A "Recent Tiki Finds" sub-forum could contain threads on Target, TJ Maxx, Spencers; and an "eBay Tiki" sub-forum would be just that: eBay auction announcements. (eBay purchases would be posted on the "Vintage/Recent Finds" accordingly). The rest of the Collecting Tiki forum would include such things as mug displaying, trading/swapping, and "New Tiki" - Gecko, Flounder, TikiFarm, Shag, etc. (These shouldn't be in included in Tiki Finds anyhow, since no one is actually finding these things - their availability is well announced and advertised.)

As far as what to do with the current "Tiki Finds" thread, I'm sure that since Hanford has the ability to "merge" similar threads, there is also the ability to divide threads: Sort the current "Tiki Finds" thread into it's proper 'sub-forums' and get rid of it entirely!

Will that work? Maybe?

Humuhumu - I see what you're saying about sub-categories and I'd have to agree it would be great ways to spark conversation about vintage items! But please, don't lock Tiki Finds - for those vintage items found in the wild that don't warrant a lot of discussion.

On 2004-08-03 12:34, Humuhumu wrote:

Buying one single Mr. Bali Hai probably doesn't justify its own thread, but a thread focused just on Mr. Bali Hai discussion with multiple brag posts and the opportunity to discuss the history a little about a type of mug or other item makes sense to me. That way, every time someone wants to brag about a Mr. Bali Hai purchase, it bumps up the thread, provides another view of the mug (all mugs differ at least a little), renews the discussion of the mug, and educates people who didn't know the history.

I like the idea of these theme threads quite a bit. Why not start some right now? A Bali Hai thread. A Trader's Vic thread. An Orchids of Hawaii thread. Do it like those theme threads over in Creating Tiki.

Bali Hai thread: Post all your Bali Hai finds here. New finds, old favorites, whatever you've got from the Bali Hai that you'd like to share. Ashtrays, mugs, menus, postcards. Show off your collection!

I bet that would work. I'd post in threads like that. Then you'd have a thread, as you stated, where you could brag on finds, show off treasured items, ebay steals, ask questions, discuss the company/restaurant history. That would be very cool IMHO. Kind of like that big Coco Joes/HIP thread a while back but with more of an ongoing life.

Some possible themes (off the top of my head): Bali Hai, Trader Vics, Tiki Gardens, Menus, Treasure Craft, Salt and Pepper Shakers, Orchids of Hawaii, Paul Marshall, carved wooden tikis, carved masks, tiki lamps, black velvets, polynesian paintings...the possibilities are endless.

I like this idea!

If you start four or five such threads then others will probably start some of their own. I'd start some but I don't have much Pied Piper appeal around here. My "Ebay Steals" thread fizzled in mere nanoseconds. :lol:

Do it Humuhumu or someone else. I'll contribute. I like to show off my collection.

It would be nice if the Tiki Finds thread could be broken up as the basis for these individual threads but I think most of the TF posts have a variety of found items only related by being tiki or polynesian.