$710 Trader Vic's Mai Tai Set

Swooning over high mug prices at auctions may have become passe but this one was a real head shaker...A Trader Vic's Mai Tai set (Book of Tiki pg 92) went for $710 0n eBay. I think I have paid maybe half that amount for all my Tiki and aloha stuff combined (and I have a decent pile of stuff). In a way I have to admire the obsession of a buyer who convinced her/himself that she/he had to have the set. But it also makes me fear that sellers everywhere who watch the auctions will now think every scrap of Tiki in their possesion is golden...Oh wait, they already do think that.

(There's a link to that set in a post by polynesianpop under the topic "Tiki rum bottle" in this forum.)

[ Edited by: woofmutt on 2002-06-17 02:17 ]

didnt that kahiki bowl go higher? I think it hit the $800+ mark.

Still that box set is a rarity- take a good look and save the pic to your hard drive- it will probably be a long time if ever that you'll see a boxed set like that.

The other one was a real score- $86

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2111795724

[ Edited by: fatuhiva on 2002-06-17 04:40 ]

A Trader Vic's auction that came up about a year ago that I thought was worthy of a high bid (can this sentence be more clunky) was a vintage bottle of Trader Vic's Mai Tai Rum. I didn't know they sold their own brand. But it seems to me a consumable item like that has to be rare.

My jaw dropped when I saw that listing, but not at the closing bid. The mugs have gone for $200 and more, so it is in line with that Ebay will bring. Would I pay that much? That's another mattter. Real funny when you consider they went for $6.95 new.

The posts about what other sellers will think their "tiki" is worth is spot on. Each month one or another fellow tiki mug collector tells me "the days of $100 mugs are coming to an end"...and each time I think "hmmmm, maybe, but I don't think so".

Cheers

The prices are just going to keep going up over time.

Vintage mugs aren't getting any less rare, and as they find their permanent homes on the shelves of collectors, one could argue that less and less are going to be out in the open market (especially the good ones)

Just like any other collectible, as time passes the price will go up in sync. Tiki mugs actually had a bit of "catching up" to do price-wise, as they were unusually cheap compared to other niches of their genre (space-age mod, 50's kitsch, etc) ..for some reason they had been overlooked as a collectible during the 90's by all except an enlightened few. Those salad days ended with the Book of Tiki, as we knew they rightly would.

Tiki is now officially collectible- even "hot". I strongly doubt it will get any cooler- only more and more frenzied and "serious" as new collectors arrive on the scene and veteran collectors fill in voids in their collections and earn more money. What we are seeing is the simultaneous coming-of-age of a collectible, and a generation working its way up through society's financial ranks.

[ Edited by: fatuhiva on 2002-06-17 22:31 ]

I think there will be a time in the near future when the price of tiki mugs will drop to a reasonable level again - I got into vintage cocktail shakers and bar accessories about 10 years ago - I was able to buy tons of the stuff dirt cheap on Ebay and then the big cocktail craze hit in the mid-90's and the prices skyrocketed. Shakers I had been paying $5 and $10 were suddenly going for $30 and $40. I've held on to the collection and recently started trying to sell some off to finance my tiki bar and I couldn't give the damn things away. It seems to me that being a mainstream craze right now has inflated the prices ridiculously. Eventually, when the people who latched on to the tiki fad move on to their next lifestyle trend the prices will drop considerably. I've been a collector of a lot of different items and I've been on Ebay since 1997, and have watched popularity and prices of items soar than drop off to nothing. It's just a matter of time for tiki to do the same.

When I saw that Trader Vic's set on Ebay it made me sick to my stomach. I saw it when it was first listed, wanted it terribly and knew there was no way that I could even bid on it.

Johntiki

When I saw that Trader Vic's set on Ebay it made me sick to my stomach. I saw it when it was first listed, wanted it terribly and knew there was no way that I could even bid on it.

Yep, and I only "need" one of them! Don't know how I will ever get one, I ain't paying triple digits. I think the Ebay prices for the large part are "artificial" and mugs as a whole will fall off to more "sane" levels just as your cocktail shakers did. I do recall how hot those items were a few years back. But vintage mugs back to a few bucks or so? Doubt it.

The "Ebay buyers are insane" topic was hevily debated back at Yahoo. It's a market, but in no way should be used as a guage of real world worth. Like that brand new $300 Mai Kai mug exhibited a few months back...it's an artificial market. But fun to sell into, hee hee!

Despite the regular summer appearances of Tiki this and that at Target, Old Navy, and this year at Red Robin I don't think Tiki has infiltrated the culture as deeply as the general cocktail craze of the 90's. I'd guess the high eBay prices are paid by serious collectors who will still be collectors years from now. Though standard shakers and glasses don't go for much these days coctail ware of fine and rare quality still fetches extremely high prices at live auctions. A lot of regular Tiki stuff goes unsold on eBay (Tiki Leilani and Trader Dick's mugs). If Tiki were a big fad most of this stuff would sell. And if the seller's didn't start their prices off too high their stuff would probably sell as well. It was almost refreshing that the seller of the TV's Mai Tai set started bidding so low. It could have been a tactic, but I think he/she had no idea what she/he had and was just a general seller who got lucky. Now just day dream how things might have been if you'd stumbled on the auction when it was first listed and there was a $75 Buy It Now! option...

The cheap/common/new stuff that is going too high lately might come down in price. You could be correct there. That is newbies who don't know the so-so stuff from the raritys. Those people will fluctuate with fads- some will stay and become more serious, others will move in and out.

However, the good pieces (like the vics set) will continue to rise. There are more and more people getting serious about their collections. These are people who were there before it was the new thing and will be there after it passes (if it does)

Just like modern furniture, there will always be serious tiki collectors, regardless of fads. Good modernism appreciates steadily. And unlike furniture, good reproductions do not have the ability of being "better than an original" as a repro tiki mug from a long lost bar doesn't have the mysterious quality of actaully having come FROM that place- a drink served in another era.

I'm giving tiki the "strong buy" rating

The only thing that can quickly drop prices on good vintage pieces is supply. Somebody finds a box of mugs.

If 3 more of those sets got posted in a row, yes, the price would be down to $300 before the smoke cleared. There's always that unknown variable of "how many are out there" - thats where your intuition has to come in. Sometimes you can get hosed- you buy as if its the only one available to find out there's more from the seller. But even if that happened with the above sets, those that still paid what they could to grab one would be glad they did after that initial (small no doubt) burst of supply is exhausted.. sometimes you have to buy in the FACE of supply because you know the supply wont last.

Are you sure? I could argue that it's broader than the "cocktail" craze. Why? I see tropical/tiki shirts at the drugstore! And everywhere! On a certain level, it is much more pervasive.

It's also a lot easier to grasp and get into. How many people do you see a day in a "Hawaiian" shirt? As opposed to a sharkskin suit in the 90s?

One big difference is that this tiki thing seems to be more of a common man kind of thing whereas the Cocktail Nation was a hoity-toity thing.

There is also a disjoint in this from the "serious" tiki-philes like us. It didn't start with us and it doesn't look to us. I bet the Exotica music we love isn't even seeing a blip of new sales.

Here's a huge example: In the 90s, when Combustible Edison came to town, how many people who might have been interested in a slight way felt they had the appropriate thing to wear? Next month for Hukilau, how many people who have a marginal interest have the appropriate thing to wear?

It's everywhere and nowhere at once.

The popularity of Aloha wear says nothing about an interest in Tiki. Aloha wear has become the look of summer and relaxation. When the Cocktail Culture thing was in full swing there were articles in most major mags about throwing cocktail parties. Cocktail ware became available at Target and other discount retailers. I'd guess Joe and Barb Ordinary said "Let's throw a cocktail party!" after seeing a how-to article in Better Homes and Gardens, but I don't think they decided to start collecting Tiki mugs after buying some Aloha shirts at Walgreens.

[ Edited by: woofmutt on 2002-06-20 00:27 ]

They'd probably be crappy Day-Glo plastic Tiki beer mugs with handles which would show up on eBay starting at 3 times the original price and further bogging down Tiki searches.

[ Edited by: woofmutt on 2002-06-20 08:08 ]

Or McDonald's would come out with a series of mugs that would spawn a whole different sort of tiki mug collecting, and it would be in conjunction with a Disney movie which brings in another set of collectors, also cross promoting Vanilla Coke...

I have read a number of threads with this very attitude. Did anyone stop to think that if tikis became more mainstream, people would naturally be drawn to the "original" Sending business to Polynesian restaurants, retail shops, hotels, bars, artists,and gasp, may help save some of the googy arcitecture we all love. I also see new and affordable tikis from garden companys (there was a tread about these a while ago)
I know you all are waiting to bite my head off but keep an open mind. The more people interested the better. I love new tiki things but treasure my old ones. I have several witco pieces but think it's great that people like bosco are carving new things. I also love tiki cheese. At Spencers gifts in the mall-I got some Moai incense holders for candles on my patio. I say live it up, who knows how long this will last!

Laney wrote: "Did anyone stop to think that if tikis became more mainstream, people would naturally be drawn to the "original" Sending business to Polynesian restaurants, retail shops, hotels, bars, artists,and gasp, may help save some of the googy arcitecture we all love."

I totally agree! Thats what I've been saying!
Thank you for putting it so well.

And, although I agree with most everything Woofmutt has said (Can't believe that!), this new interest in "mainstream Polynesia" is what I think can drive a new generation of tiki bars and themed restaurants.

As for the "serious ebay buyers"...I sleep better at night hoping that they get discouraged or bored with the new fad and then carefully sell off their stuff at a fraction at what hey paid for it. Call it tiki-karma. I figure they deserve a loss for outbidding me so dramacticly!

But seriously, I have to think that a portion of these "collectors-on-a-hula-band-wagon" will tire of paying so much, or simply find some new hip and trendy thing to collect and they'll burn out. I've seen it happen a few times already. I think we all have! (No names mentioned,) I've spoken with people in Columbus who said just that - "Oh, I got kinda tired of it..." Of course, to my knowledge they have not yet parted with their collections. YET.

Anyway, this is a very interesting thred. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it so far.

-C.
:sheckymug: