What is the most you have spent for one Tiki?

Hi everybody:)
I am new member here and I come from Finland. I am new with Tikis too and I found this site by accident:) I have been reading messages and looking wonderfull pictures in here for couple days and I decided to join with you:)

However, the big guestion is what is most money you have spent for one Tiki? I dont mean the money you spent for making it, I mean the money you spent for buying it:)

Well since I am a carver, I don't buy many tikis but the most I have Sold one for was $2500.00 He was a big 13 foot maori warrior



He was made from Honduran Mahogany felled by Hurricane Andrew

Ben, that sounds like good value for money,whoever bought it. That things HUGE. how long did it take you to carve.

Hei Tiki Finland, good to have a new european tiki fan here.
I think the most I spent was about $150 for some great tiki painting.

By the way, I love Helsinki, one of my favorite city. And I love Finnish litterature, movies, music...
Tervetuloa

Cheeky, It WAS Hugeand I spent 30 days working on it all the while working on other carvings as well, so its hard to say. I put about 10 coats of Marine eurathane on it and when I saw it 12 years later, It Still looked really good and the finish seemed as good as new, The owner never did any maint on it, just left it hung on a west facing wall.

$500. on my witco dinning room table with three heavy duty rataan swivel chairs. had to cancel my florida vacation that year, but still what a deal! if anyone has the book, hula girls and tiki gods, by chris pfouts, there's a picture of it in there. great witco tiki as the base.

I sold my soul for an eternal tiki (and I think the seller got ripped off! Go dawg!)

[ Edited by: TNTiki on 2004-11-06 18:44 ]

Benzart, no price could be worthy of such a mega-tiki!

Like Bong (and I daresay others), I have lost my mind in exchange for tiki.

I paid $600 for a Guanko tiki (BOT page 248, extreme left in picture) and I paid $2000 for a non-tiki Papua New Guinea artifact. It's not a tiki, but a huge male carving, so, does it count?

of course it counts. its art. does the mona lisa count? it's not made by a machine. it's made by a lifetime of thought, many mistakes, alot of learning, and two busy hands and many hours of hard passionate work.

Oof, easily my first Witco bar! I got it before I knew of Tiki Central. I actually found TC from searching "Witco"

I saw the bar set driving by a retro store in Fullerton, in the window. Everything in this store is expensive, so I didn't even want to ask how much. We hopped out and sat on the stools for a while. I flinched when he told me how much, but then I just did it! I don't treat myself often being such a bargain hunter.

I don't even want to say how much I paid for it, A LOT! But I also know that if I hadn't bought it, I'd still be thinking about it, so I also bought a little piece of mind. I've learned a lot about Witco since then and I think this is one of his very early bars. Someday, Keigs will come down South to visit and tell me more, but from the comparisons to old catalogs it may be a better buy than I thought. It's my favorite of the three I have and came with 3 stools, a large shield, 2 spears, and four masks.

It started my Witco collection so I guess that makes it responsible for even more money spent!

Laney is ther pictures of your bar somewhere, I would love to see it if possible. It sounds wonderful.

Benzart, that is beautiful! Your carving blows me away more each day. I would appreciate anything you could tell me about that wood, how you cured/prepared it ect...I come across alot of dead Mahogony, but it is very green. How can I use it? How did you prepare that wood? That is one piece!?! Thanks for the picture.

Thanks Higi,
Yes it's one piece of Honduran mahogany. Hurricane Andrew leveled 4 Honduran Mahog trees in a golf course on sunrise out past the turnpike a block or so. (they have more left) I new the tree trimmers who removed the wood and they got paid for dumping it also. So they brought me 3 dump truck loads of this wood.Yuou can carve it fairly fresh, not like our Fla Mahog which is very different and more beautiful. Anyway I carved it and sanses it down to 220 grit with electric soft pad sanders, and just started coating it with marine urethane. I gave it about 12 coats and thet was the key, It hung on a west facing wall for a few years untilthe guy at ODonnels nursery bought itand 2 more, I saw it therre 2 years ago and it was still beautiful. I guess If you bring me the mahogany I will prep it for you and matbe carve it.. Bring it on up.

I've just paid $75 for a large 19th Century Polynesian mask, which is a new record for me (but still something of a bargain).

My $30 limit for Tiki mugs still sticks, (though perhaps I should add inflation to that figure as it's been there for a few years). I made one exception for the Gecko mug ($35), as I'd always wanted something by Gecko and the carvings were always far too expensive to send to the UK.

To me, Tiki is still very much connected to thrifting and getting something interesting for just a small amount of money!

Trader Woody

I don't know if it counts, but I spent $200 on my L-shaped bamboo coffee table. I think it's 40s or 50s, with a teak top?? might be mahogany.. anyway, also wins the prize for most spent on furniture ever too...

My big tiki spurge were a pair of 7 foot tiki carvings obtained from the recently closed Honolulu Restaurant here in DC.

I won't say exactly how much I paid - but I will reveal that somebody else had already offered to bid $1000 for 4 of the poles, and my bid was higher than that for just two of them.

No regrets at all - I considered it a once a lifetime opportunity, to be able to own something that had been a part of a favored tiki gathering place.

Vern

Swanky informed:

I paid $600 for a Guanko tiki

You ha-ha-have...I mean you...you actually own a Guanko tiki?!
I am not worthy...but I would like to see a pic; I searched and the pic link in your original post is dead: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2915&forum=1
Since you made that post, have you gotten any idea of where it came from?

The most I ever paid for a Tiki was for Big Daddy Olu, the 9 ft Moai carved from a standing treetrunk in my frontyard. Leroy had to carve on it on weekends. Worth every penny off course.

Also, a Marquesan Tiki bar stool. Not very big, quite simple, but it was from the Tahitian Lanai (!). I bought it from a Waikiki Antique store, AND I had to have it shipped. An unimitable piece of history.

On 2004-08-19 00:17, tikijackalope wrote:
Swanky informed:

I paid $600 for a Guanko tiki

You ha-ha-have...I mean you...you actually own a Guanko tiki?!
I am not worthy...but I would like to see a pic; I searched and the pic link in your original post is dead: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2915&forum=1
Since you made that post, have you gotten any idea of where it came from?

There are two good possibilities, the Mahi Mahi or Blue Hawaii in Nashville. I have not found anything from either establishment. I'll try to fix the pics later.

Ikitnrev,
I paid about what you paid for a 5 foot Cook Island version of the god Lono except I had to buy a pair of Tikis. The other one was also 5 foot and is of the Tongan godess Atua Fefina. They are both about twenty five years old and came from the Big Island of Hawaii.