Research: Which Tiki Restaurant's Memorabilia is Most Collectible?

I recently decided to liquidate my entire collection of tiki salt & pepper shakers on Ebay. I stopped collecting them over a year ago because I've found that I'm much more interested in tiki paper, (and every so often a rare mug). I finally admitted that they were being neglected for attention, so I went ahead and sold them all. Here are the results:

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewListedItems&since=2&userid=cycluracyclura&include=0&rows=50

I thought the tiki Salt & Pepper market was down over the last year, but I was happily surprised to find some fierce bidding taking place, (maybe it was the combined shipping offer? Maybe the chance to build an entire collection quickly? I don't know.) I spent probably $200 acquiring the above collection. It was nice to gross about $500. I never planned to buy these shakers as investment, I just liked 'em. They are like cute little replicas of the mugs. But they turned out to be good investments nonetheless. If some of you TC'ers were among the bidders, I thank you most humbly and sincerely - the money will come in handy right now.

Liquidating a whole collection like this in one shot also gives you the chance to collect some data that you might normally have to search all over Ebay for. It was insightful to tally up the auction hit-counters at the time each auction closed. Here are the sorted results by restaurant/manufacturer:

Mr. Bali Hai (San Diego) - 168 hits
Tiki Bob's (San Fran) - 149 hits
Don The Beachcomber's - 137 hits
Treasure Craft manufact. - 88 hits
Skipper Kent's - 85 hits
Trader Vic's - 78 hits
Kahiki (Columbus, OH) - 75 hits
Hawaii Kai (New York) - 70 hits
Mauna Loa (Detroit) - 68 hits
Tahiji manufacturer - 59 hits
Unknown manufacturer - 50 hits
Unknown manufacturer - 50 hits
Chan's (New York) - 42 hits
Paul Marshall (PMP) - 41 hits

I know this leaves out a lot of restaurants and manufacturers, but it was still interesting to see the patterns. Do the rankings of these restaurants accurately reflect their collectibility? Do they match your own observations and experiences? Are there any surprises? (The Treasure Craft total is probably skewed, as I was selling 3 sets of shakers in one auction there).

Sabu

On 2004-08-11 18:57, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
Mauna Loa (Detroit) - 68 hits

it would have been 69 hits had I known. DAMN!

-Z

well heck. did you post that you were selling stuff? i musta missed it. now all thats left are your sex videotapes. (well, not yoursper se..)

elicia

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-12 14:40 ]

Before I read the list , I checked the auctions. Mr Bali Hai: First one I noticed, but I knew what it looked like so I didn't check it. Tiki Bob: Knew what it was gonna look like, but I checked anyway. I just like that one. An inspired design. Don The Beachcomber's: Didn't know what it looked like, so I checked it. And, those were the only ones that I considered looking at, at that moment. Am I representative of the majority? I would sure hate to think so. And/or, is it name recognition? If you're going to get one of these, these (one of the top three) should probably be the ones you should have? I don't know. "Shag" has that effect on people. Notice how many times his signature is used describing anything remotely tiki on Ebay. Is it a matter of being the biggest (most well known) and/or the best (literally)? Hence, more hits? An easy case could be made for that line of reasoning.

[ Edited by: foamy on 2004-08-11 21:18 ]

On 2004-08-11 18:57, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
I've found that I'm much more interested in tiki paper...

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-12 14:40 ]

Fil,

You're not at fault - I am. I think that was at the time Tikibelle and I were planning the wedding and I wasn't answering ANYBODY'S e-mail. I wasn't annoyed - just overwhelmed. I'm sorry - I let a bunch of correspondence slip.

The Moai screensaver was already spoken for, and I should have let you know that.

Sabu

Sabu,
I think selling price, not hits would show what's most colectible. A piece with 50 hits, but 12 bids that goes high is the one you want to sell more of. That can be because it's rare or there are more avid collectors of it.