Hawaiian Island Products - HIP

My father started HIP in 1964. Is anyone interested in the story? I have early product, pictures and documentation of how it all started. I also know where it went after we lost the business.

[Edited by Hanford to fix spelling in title]

[ Edited by: hanford_lemoore on 2005-05-30 17:30 ]

Kimo ~ talk story! i'd love to hear more about your family & the HIP business ~ and pictures..pictures are fantastic..

just jump in ~ we love show and tell!

welcome to Tiki Central!

Welcome Kimoaz,
Please, let it flow!

dogbytes, We moved to Hawaii in 1964. Mom, Dad, 4 boys, 2 dogs and 13 pieces of luggage. After 2 weeks in Waikiki, Dad started to research opportunites in Hawaii.
CoCO Joe's owned the Tiki business at the time, which was products made out of a black lava blend. Dad did some looking around and realized he could take that idea a bit further and he developed the molds and process to make tikis, ashtrays, keychains, poi pounders, pen holders and other products not only out of black lava, but red lava, coral, sand, olivine and anything else he could mix and mold. We started in the kitchen, in Manoa, making molds of checker chips and filling them with different material mixes until we came up with the right mix.
This story goes on but before we go any further, my dad's name was Sam Bulkley. He fell in love with Hawaii on a few business trips and had the courage to move us all from Colorado to Hawaii. Then he found a way to put us all to work starting HIP.
Let me put together a better history and I will include pictures. I have the originall
checker chips we made in the kitchen. Please be patient.

Welcome Kimoaz!

I am a big fan of HIP products, and can't wait to hear and see more about how it all started.

Mahalo!

Hi Kimoaz, welcome to TC. We all can't wait to hear more about your story. Hurry!

I hope this works. This will give you an idea of what we used to make.

(img)http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b5db11b3127cce91b7317526e000000016108BcuXDZy3cU(/img)

I have to practice embedding pictures.

This is much better

Very cool , cant wait to hear more. Do you have any old photos to share with us.
Thanks and welcome to TC

You've got my attention! I always wondered about HIP.

welcome kimoaz! you have a totally attentive audience here. how did you find us?

I have started a new topic forum. One that is spelled correctly. I guess I was excited the first time. Please check there for any updates that will come along. I have to organize the story with the pictures and the documents. I just want to make sure it all makes sense. Thank-you for your interest.

Howzit kimoaz! Do you have pictures of the first HIP items and was there ever catalogs of the different figures? :tiki:

We are SO GLAD you found us. There have been discussions about H.I.P. verses CocoJoes in the past. You will find Many open arms and Listening ears so Please tell your story and take as long as you would like to add as many photos as you have.
Thanks for sharing.

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-13 12:28 ]

Welcome bro!
Glad you found us and we look forward to sharing our HIP fondness with you.

It's always great when we have members who have made some contribution to the tiki community!

Wow!

Aloha eveyone,
Thank you for being patient. I have been away on business and I have been thinking about HIP since I left.
It is interesting, as I have looked back because HIP in the begining, was not what it was when it closed. Yes we did make tiki out of the natural materials of Hawaii but that was a very small part of our business. We knew that Coco Joe had the Black Lava souvenir business locked up. Sam(my father) wanted to use more of the material that was available to bring more color to the market.
So, as I look back on the process of how HIP got started and how it ended up,it is an interesting story because when HIP stopped it was doing exactly what Coco Joes was doing. In the 80's no one was using Lava anymore and everyone was basically making similar products. When we started we made tiki,key chains,paper weights,poi pounders,trivits,coasters, pins, earings
and an assortment of corporate items. We made everything out of black lava,red lava,yellow lava,white coral,sand,and olivine(green). This gave us an entire range of colors we could use.
As you can probably tell, Sam Bulkley was a suit and tie kind of guy. His approch was from a corporate standpoint while Coco Joe was living and making his products in Punalu in a very relaxed atmosphere. That is probably why his company lasted so long.
So, tell me where you want to go with this. If you would like to know about the early souvenir business as it pertains to HIP that would be great. If you would like me to answer questions I would be happy to do that. I will let you tell me how you would like to proceed.
Thank -you all for your interest. Who would have known back then that anyone would still want to know about HIP.

Hi Kimo -
Thanks for joining and telling us some stories. Here's some more questions for starters!

Who did the design - was that Sam (and you or others in the family)? One thing interesting about the HIP stuff is that there's some traditional designs, and then a bunch of playful designs that look like they came from someone just having fun. Like these three below.

Here on TikiCentral, we've had several discussion threads about the lava tiki makers like HIP and CocoJoe. Here's a link to one that went into some detail with some people showing photos from their collections. Glad you started a thread to tell us more about HIP, so here's a question I had on that other discussion. Do you know what this place (storefront photo below) was in Waiahole, and do the tikis outside have any relation to the similar tikis that HIP made?

Have you heard of a movie called Bikini A Go Go? This tiki pendant below has a starring role. Unfortunately it's a porn movie.

While we're on that subject, HIP did some of the most voluptuous hula girls of any of the brands (like the one below). Was there a human model for these girls, or did the sculptor just make them up?

Is Sam still alive and well? Also, I bet people would like to learn more about the fire that hit the business, as the legend goes.

Hope that's not too many questions. Thanks for visiting us, and hope you stay awhile.

-Randy

Aquari,
Thanks for your questions. I think a little history and timeline would be helpfull.

We started HIP in October 1964. Sam(my father) joined the Hawaii Manufacturing Assoc. early in 1995 and 3 other members wanted to invest in the company and since we always were short of money Sam quickly agreed. He had the company until early 1967 at which point one of the investors took over the company. He then sold the company 6-12 months later(1968) to Chuck Harvey who was one of the original outside salesmen. He had the company for about 2 years and he sold it to a couple of ladies,I do not know their names, in 1970 or 1971. They had it the longest but then sold the company in 1985 and the company folded in 1988.

The progression of the products follows this timeline. The early pieces did not look at all like Coco Joes. They were designed to look as historically accurate as possible. As time went on HIP and Coco Joes began to look very similar. Sam wanted to have a very different image for HIP.

About the famous fire. I remember Coco Joes burning down in Punaluu but I don't ever remember HIP burning. Usually the pieces bent because they weren't cured properly. I threw alot of stuff away because of that. The heat from a fire would just melt everything.

The early design work was done by Sam and an artist/sculptor that worked with him. Many of the early designs came from the Bishop Museum. We used their material for our Kii, poi pounders and petrogliph designs.

I do not recognise the storefront with the large tiki out front. I am not familiar with the origine of those designs. As time went on the scarier and more dramatic a tiki the better it sold. Sam tried to stay true to the history.

Sory this is so wordy. When I get some time I will give you some pictures.

This is fascinating info, Kimoaz. Thanks for the timeline and for finally solving The Mystery of the Bowing Tiki