Is This The Elusive Cobra's Fang Mug?

I found a couple of these a while back. No markings and does not look like the mug in the Islander menu.

Any help out there would be appreciated. Mahalo....

It certainly looks like the one in the case at Oceanic Arts.

A couple of months ago, Bob was telling us how they were selling them at OA years ago. They just weren't moving, so they marked them down to $.39 a piece.

Thanks Kate for that info. It's been a while since I was at OA and I usually look at that case but I must be blind as I don't remember seeing them. I found those mugs a couple years ago and It only dawned on me what they might be after looking at the menu today.

I also think the one you found is an example of the Oceanic Arts mugs, as Tiki Kate was saying.

Bob still has most of the original mold for those mugs and a couple of months ago I started a list at the counter. He said that if enough people expressed interest and signed in, he might see about making some more! I only got about 5 people to sign up, though. I really need to start a separate thread to get that going, but I've been really busy lately...

There is another Cobra's Fang mug sitting on a shelf at the Tiki Ti which is closer to the menu depiction. It can be seen on their website. It has the head that coils over and appears to be spitting venom over the lip of the mug. Here's a shot from their website:

Now that's a cool mug!

These aren't very good pictures, but, you can see the mugs.
Taken at OA

Thanks Al. The other mug is a darker green. No chips or cracks.

A Semi-Sweet Dink?

Is this correct or a type-o?
I envy you, I've been looking for a Cobra's fang for years.

Texas Tikiphiles Unite!

[ Edited by: Unkle John 2008-06-06 09:43 ]

That's so cool! I've been curious about potential snake mugs out there ever since I saw this menu from the Mauna Loa in Mexico City:

The mug pictured above it actually exists, so I've been hopeful that the snake one does, too. Best I've been able to figure, the Mauna Loa Mexico mugs were manufactured by a unique manufacturer (some mugs are marked "Enrique Gerra" which was a ceramicist in Mexico City). The menu design is very stylized, of course, but I'd love to see a snake mug like that one, with the head sticking straight up. This mug gives me hope that one of these babies really exists!

Here is another shot of the Tiki-Ti Cobra's Fang mug that I've borrowed from their website.

http://www.tiki-ti.com

On Ebay right now, I bet someone would bid on this.

Here

Buy It Now only $12.50

[ Edited by: teaKEY 2008-08-22 05:15 ]

Cool mug...but it's a rattlesnake, not a cobra.

Man that would be a cool mug to have....
Especially where I live.. I've killed over 3 dozen rattle snakes since I moved out west.

I found this it has no makers mark but you can tell it's old. has anyone seen one could this be the real thing.

Wow! Never seen this baby before in my Tiki life! I never thought that that famous menu illustration was such an accurate rendering of the real thing! --That, or some fun-loving mug maker here has made one directly from that illustration, to elicit reactions such as mine. :D

Pa'akiki. can you please take another picture showing the other side of this mug. Very nice find.

Great find! Even if it were a fake, it's a pretty damn good replica (and I'll take one, BTW!)

I think it's interesting that the only one that's actually a cobra is the Tiki Ti one!
:lol:

(Yeah, I know I'm a snake nerd. Sue me.)

BTW, I'd grab any one of the non-cobras pictured in a heartbeat!

That newly posted, menu-perfect one is amazing!!

"Zazz captivates felt."

[ Edited by: Formikahini 2010-02-23 16:15 ]

hiltiki, here is the other side and the bottom of the mug.

And now a photo of the inside. Also test for traces of fruit juices and liquor, and carbon-date the material, please.

Last, a CT scan would be appreciated :wink:

Pa'akiki, thank you. Sven, are you all right?

Well, I guess I will be satisfied with the fact that the bottom looks kinda vintage... :D

Yes the bottom is always very important. :)

On 2010-02-23 18:45, bigbrotiki wrote:
And now a photo of the inside.

Yeah. Could we get a shot of that? I thought the same thing as you did bigbro, when I first saw it, that it was some fun loving mug maker's tribute. I'd like to see if it's molded production mug or a one off. It looks like a one off to me. There's one line on the front that looks like it may be a mold line, but the pictures aren't quite clear enough to tell. The bottom photo also looks(once again it's hard to truly tell with the photo quality) like it has evidence of being hand built, as opposed to cast.

Seeing the inside might tell us how it was produced. Looking at the finished piece here, I think if it was a production mug, the head of the snake would have to been cast as separate piece and then placed on the cast mug part. The tail of the snake also looks like it wouldn't have been able to molded as it is. Both parts would have to have had some sort of post casting work done to it, above and beyond the typical cleanup necessary in the process. And that adds time, and expense, and it seems the tail could have been easily done differently to facilitate the molding process.

I think if it's the real thing, then it would be a cast or molded mug, not a hand built one. So let's see how it was made so Sabu can offcially cross this off the Crypto mug list.

And if pa akiki wants to wait until after it's sold to post those pictures, I totally understand. Caveat emptor! I guess there could be a lot of money riding on what it really is. This could be the biggest mystery since the shroud of Turin!

Buzzy Out!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2010-02-25 18:21 ]

Wow, that is a pretty mug the i thought it was a babalu make, but the color looks really vintage(not that it's impossible to replicate). The head certainly looks like an add on from the one shot. I love it at any rate.

On 2010-03-01 08:12, Mike the Headhunter wrote:
Wow, that is a pretty mug the i thought it was a babalu make, but the color looks really vintage(not that it's impossible to replicate). The head certainly looks like an add on from the one shot. I love it at any rate.

oh no,no,no..it certainly isn't mine :) It is very, very cool that this Cobra Fang mug has been found!! WOW, and WOW! again.

I have been playing with the Cobra Fang mug image off of the Islander menu for quite some time now though. I have also had some wonderful help from other TCers who have researched the work that came from Spurlin Ceramics for the Islander...personally, I'm not that fond of the Spurlin sculpting, or their glaze work on any of their mugs or bowls, however, I'm very intrigued with them as a Studio and their role in PolyPop.

One interesting thing that I "kind of" denote from the newly posted pictures of the real Cobra mug is that it looks somewhat forced to the Cobra image on the menu...this leads me to believe that the menu images came first (egg before the chicken kind of thing) and that Spurlin was contracted to build to those images, not the other way around. The green glaze color is really the part that seems a little forced to me. Spurlin used (from what I know) only one basic brown, yeller color on all of their mugs for the Islander. It would only be natural for them to try out other mug(s)in their line up with the same color that might be left over from this Cobra...hence the other green mug in the display case over at Oceanic Arts. Personally, I feel that the green color they choose is a little too opaque for the design; something a little more transparent in a light green might have been a better choice...again, that is just my opinion.

Anyway, yes, I have had a master sculpt built for some time now which is soooo close to being done. It has also been forced from the menu image. It seems like I have been putting off taking this master sculpt to plaster molds forever...I still have a bit of clean up to do on it yet: I should jump on that and push the project forward. Not everyone will be able to afford the original (and I would bet more show up now), but it shouldn't be to hard to land one of mine :) More "soon".

That is so weird! The Tiki revival (Babalu) catching up to the Tiki period, but then being overtaken by the real thing after all....or has it not?

I am still not 100 % convinced of the authenticity of the mug, no additional info about its acquisition has been put forward. Provenance is an important factor in assessing primitive artifacts. :D

On 2010-03-01 13:24, bigbrotiki wrote:
That is so weird! The Tiki revival (Babalu) catching up to the Tiki period, but then being overtaken by the real thing after all....or has it not?

I am still not 100 % convinced of the authenticity of the mug, no additional info about its acquisition has been put forward. Provenance is an important factor in assessing primitive artifacts. :D

Yes, :) - I felt like I was getting hit with heavenly bolts of irony when I first saw that mug.

Ya know, having kind of dived into Spurlin some, my "guess" is that it is the real deal...and that green glaze on that other Spurlin mug in the display over at OA is a dead ringer.

Here are some pictures of the inside. we bought the mug from a lady in everett washington who got it from an estate sale, but she can't remember whos estate it was.

Here is a group photo of the mug with some of his friends.

NONE OF THESE MUGS ARE FOR SALE OR TRADE.

looks like it was a nice pen holder!
"from estate mug inside shot"

It looks nice and old to me.

I'm going to ask Squid to take a look at it. He's been casting those PNG drum mugs lately with the bird-handle as a separate piece with its own mold. The handle is attached with some slip before the mug is fired. The extra step doesn't seem to be that onerous in producing a decent-sized run of mugs.

It looks to me like both the head and tail-tip of this mug are separate pieces that were attached to the base mug before firing. That would make the primary mold much easier.

Babalu - any thoughts on this? Too much work for a few hundred restaurant-pieces?

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2010-03-04 16:10 ]

I am still marveling at how much it looks exactly like the menu rendering! It's just that I have looked at that illustration for over ten years and always thought "boy, they sure embellished that thing", assuming it was based on the green OA one. :)

Morning,

Yup, that's a cast mug alright. That inside photo helped a lot. No, it would not have been that big of a deal to add that head and tail on to the casting in production. There are several things that make me think this is the real deal.

1. Spurlin did not sign the bottoms of the mugs and bowls that they made...like this one

2. All of the Spurlin sculpts that I have seen are not that well crafted...like this one.

3. It is a castings with added parts.

4. The green glaze used on that other Spurlin mug in the OA display case is a dead ringer for the glaze used on this one.

5. It looks old for sure.

It may be that the Islander used this mug for a while, or that this one is from a prototype run of a few mugs? It seems to me that there is a possibility that the Islander might have switched to that other snake in the display case? It would have been cheaper to make.

Another interesting thing to look at for you muggers is the sizes. I'm not sure of the size of this mug, but I believe that the other snake mug in the QA display case is a smaller mug...Is'nt there a recipe for the Cobra Fang cocktail that you all know of? If I remember right, the finished recipe is not that much liquid when everything is combined together. That would be my last question on this newly found Cobra mug...how big is it?

Those other Don's mugs are very cool too! Are those rare as well? I have never seen Spurlin use a red glaze...maybe those come from a different studio.

hi Babalu,
this mug holds 10oz it is 5 3/4" tall. base is 3" wide top is 2 1/2" wide
the don the beachcomber mugs are also rare handmade for the hollywood location by Vermonde. we think the reason for the red glaze on these mugs was to accomodate women wearing red lipstick back in the day. thats why we call them the lipstick mugs.

Aaah, Vermonde was the also the maker of the original Caucasian Don The Beachcomber bust mug.

Baba, I think you're on to something with your prototype idea, this might be true for several other mysterious crypto-mugs, too:
Only a few were manufactured, served as the model for the menu illustrations, but then were never mass-produced.

I'd say 100% that's a Spurlin. The style, especially the wood grain, is just telling. The sort of washed out glaze. FAr more detailed than any others I have seen.

10 oz...include ice and the size sounds about right to the recipe that I remember being told about a while back. I'm sure someone will post that Islander Cobra Fang recipe on here at some point.

I can also say with about 99% certainty that the fact that this is a casting, says that more of them were made. "No" ceramics studio in their right mind would build a mold for just one casting...even if they never went to production with this design (which I would bet they did go to production with it, if even if for a small run), they would have cast multiples to test various glazes on and to speak with their client(s) about. Heck, they most likely would not have built the mold until the client signed off on the master sculpt to begin with.

This all kind of leads me to another point. Who knows what this mug is worth...I would have to say (that for some time to come) it will not be worth more than it is right now. I feel pretty confident that more of them will be found.

Example (and I will keep this short as it is not really topic):
Babalu is a collector believe it or not, I have had a long time interest in collecting cheesy lamps from the 50's, and vintage travel trailers from the late 40's. Only more recently tiki. Many years ago, I brought a "holy grail" of vintage travel trailers (the only trailer I own now)...a 1947 Aero Flite Falcon. At the time I brought it, only 3 were known to exist, and there was no manufacture, or design history on it avalible what so ever - only speculation. I went to town trying to recover all of this unknown information...I found out who made it, who designed it, the fact that only 100 or so could have been made, and more. I started sharing this information on the Web, and folks out there in the vintage travel trailer arena took interest. I have a friend who has since picked the ball up and taken the research even further...he has even built a Site devoted to the trailer...ok, here's the point. When only 3 of these trailers were known to exist, and there was mystery surrounding them, they were worth a lot of money...today, with all the information now known, more of them have started to show up. I think the count on the number of Aero Flite travel trailers out there today is in the low 20s...prices are still high on them, but not like they use to be. I paid more than I should have for a trailer that I have to completely restore from the ground up. If I had only waited? Hell, there is one on eBay right now... There may come a time when the value of my trailer shoots back up again, but I most likely won't see that...who knows? All that really counts is I love my trailer. :)

back to topic - This mug is truly wonderful...truly! A holy grail mug if ever there was one. Score of the year Pa'akiki! :)

[ Edited by: Babalu 2010-03-05 12:01 ]

Art museums deal with that all the time.
1.) A hitherto-unknown object is found in an attic.
2.) $20,000 is paid for it.
3.) 5 more show up, since someone saw it and said, "Oh! My grandma has one of those!"
4.) 10 more show up, same reason.
5.) The one in charge of that first collection in the museum has mud on his face for a while, since the price has now dropped WAY down.

It eventually goes back up, however, and the museum still has the caché of having found the First, even if it's no longer the Only.

Here is a couple of pictures of the babalu's cobra fang next to the one we think is an original
for comparison. Babalu did an excellent job on this mug it has great detail. Thanks also to Hodadhank who offered this mug up for sale from his store Freaky Boutiki.

[ Edited by: pa'akiki 2010-03-19 12:13 ]

note: I was at the Tiki Ti on Wednesday and I overheard a convo with the owner talking about how he wants to make an official Tiki Ti mug, but styled after the Cobra's Fang!

Could be an amazing mug in the future!!

:lol: that's so cool seeing that old prototype I did next to the original one.

Thank you for purchasing that snake from Hank pa'akiki :) I think that mug sat in my shop here for about a year before I hauled it down to Hank's. That is one of 4 hand built prototypes that I built up prior to building the master sculpt on the one to go to mold with that you see below. I've had this one master below ready to go to mold with for quite some time too...go figure that the real one would be found? It just cracks me up :lol: You can see that this molded one looks perhaps a little more like the menu image than the original one does?...I think it does anyway...

Carlosrossi, funny you should mention the Tiki Ti, It was the picture of their Cobra mug behind the bar over there that helped to convince me to add the flared hood on this snake...can this whole thing get any freakier? Anyway, If you speak to the owner of the Tiki Ti again, tell him I've got just the snake mug for him :) I can always change the wording on the bottom.

So, as you can see, I've built up the first mold...I'm building the block and case on it today...more soon...

[ Edited by: Babalu 2010-03-19 22:24 ]

Hey Formika,

It's more like a museum pays $60,000 for it! Frankly, or a collector pays even more than that for the "first" one.

:wink:

GK

Babalu, it's not only that you are a great artist, it's that you are DRIVEN to make these amazing mugs that bowls me over.

Thanks Big Bro! Glad to see that you made it back home safe and clear of that volcano's vengeance. I have been searching for pacific inspired snake designs lately (there isn't much out there)...I couldn't help but notice this terrific painting(?) on your wall to the left of your home bar that you posted on another thread...is this a contemporary work? What is it's origin?

This darn Cobra design has reared it head on me this past month...I explained more on my crafts thread here -
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24647&forum=18&start=1110&1120

Yet another prototype on this design...

On 2010-05-04 23:00, Babalu wrote:
Thanks Big Bro! Glad to see that you made it back home safe and clear of that volcano's vengeance. I have been searching for pacific inspired snake designs lately (there isn't much out there)...I couldn't help but notice this terrific painting(?) on your wall to the left of your home bar that you posted on another thread...is this a contemporary work? What is it's origin?

This darn Cobra design has reared it head on me this past month...I explained more on my crafts thread here -
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24647&forum=18&start=1110&1120

Yet another prototype on this design...

Nice! I am glad that you posted, Babs, cause I saw something in a bar window in Prague and photographed it for you:

I thought this was a nice variation on the theme. I don't think you can build it into the mug design, but as a sculptor I think you'd appreciate it. :)

The animal in the storyboard painting is an eel, the illustrations are telling the myth of Hina and the Eel:

"According to a legend from Tahiti, the first coconut came from the head of an eel named Tuna. When the moon goddess Hina fell in love with the eel, her brother, Maui, killed it and told her to plant the head in the ground. However, Hina left the head beside a stream and forgot about it. When she remembered Maui's instructions and returned to search for the head, she found that it had grown into a coconut tree."

You can see the piece hanging in situ at The Tikis on page 109 of the BOT.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-05-05 21:26 ]

I usually try not to stray too much from a thread's subject matter, but to keep this board interesting, I sometimes take the opportunity to elaborate on a subject that might not come up otherwise, so I beg Babalu's forgiveness for this side track:

I first saw and photographed this Hina Storyboard in 1993 during my first expedition to The Tikis:

I was glad I could buy it off Danny Balsz the next year, I loved the naive/psychedelic style. Sort of an early Ken Ruzic:

This must have been done in the late 60s...ahead of its time and the Tiki revival!

I never found out who painted it.

Here is the story sequence:

Hina falls in love with the eel

Maui finds out and catches him

Maui gets stark-raving mad and kills the eel

The eels head grows roots and sprouts the first coconut tree!

Now there is a twist to the story: This is not a singular piece! A couple of years later, during a holiday in Waikiki, I stumbled on a neighborhood Tiki Bar...don't ask me where it was, somewhere downtown, and behind the bar hung a painting just like it! It was longer than mine, and I don't remember if it varied much, but it was the same story, by the same artist!

Now I THINK this place was called the "South Seas" --but it was NOT the South Seas that you used to see coming in from the airport:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36241&forum=2

It was a small dive...BUT it was filled with some of the most exquisite tourist carvings: Marquesan war clubs and Tahitian Tikis and things, like I had only seen at the Hawaiian Hut --which was also a Spencecliff restaurant. Spencecliff had some direct line on quality carvings from Tahiti, you just don't see that kind of stuff anymore nowadays.

In retrospect I am thinking that this place had taken over the name and decor from the above "South Seas" Restaurant after that location closed. Next time I went looking for it I could not find it, and never found anything else about it --or saw another version of that Hina painting again. Maybe Phil Roberts knows something about that "South Seas" reincarnation?

Sven - another exact copy of that Hina wall hanging in the same size (but on cloth) sold on eBay in November for $50. The artist was named as "Guyot" in the auction title, but unfortunately, the link is long dead and I didn't save the auction text or photos. Looks like the image was produced in several formats.

Sabu