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Trader Vic's VooDoo glasses...or not?

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Found these at a flea market over the weekend:

They were marked 6 for $18.00, but he gave 'em to me for $10.00
They don't seem to have ever had gold on them.
Did someone (or even TV) knock them off in a non-gilded version?
They have three seams around them, which I thought was odd. Should they?



S
Swanky posted on Wed, Feb 2, 2011 9:26 AM

I'd say they are just from the Imperial Glass outlet store when they ran out of gold paint one day...

K

I agree. Unpainted Voodoo Grogs.

I'll go with unpainted Voodoo Grogs then.
I should've looked into it more, turns out Imperial Glass is about an hour from Pittsburgh. The catalog page shown in this thread only shows them with gold:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=34296&forum=5&vpost=490669&hilite=imperial%20glass
They're only shown with gold, but I suppose it's possible that these were diverted from the production before they were painted, samples, rejects or something of the like.
Besides, I haven't found anything about any other company manufacturing them.

Now, a roadtrip to Wheeling, WV. There's gotta be more glass in them hills!

I quite like them without the gold, too, it makes the masks more interesting. But they loose a little of that James Bond touch without the gold.
One could theorize that repeated hot dishwasher treatments could have bleached the gold paint off, but that there is not one speck of gold left points to the above option. To me, these are preferable to the late, ceramic versions. Or. for that matter, to the late globby mold glasses - like the one I put in the BOT, the only one available to me at the time. :)

S
spiked posted on Wed, Feb 9, 2011 1:45 PM

I found one last year in the wild for 90 cents, with almost no gold left, I don't know how I spotted that in the sea of glass on the thrift store shelf (probably because I already had a ceramic Tiki Farm one), but I painted masks with gold paint from the hobby store where you can buy miniatures for gaming etc. Turned out pretty good, but I still wonder if I should have left it the way it was..

I'm also a bit curious about repairing gold on glasses. I have
a perfect port light glass and a not so perfect starboard glass.
What's the best paint to repair the gold on the starboard so it
looks as nice as the port? Anyone know how Imperial applied the
original gold?

Bigbro: I looked it up in BOT. That is a sad looking one :)
Spiked: Was there any change in the glass (color, finish, texture) where the gold was missing?

I don't see any ghost image where gold might have been or a speck of gold on any of the 6(!)
Since it's a matching set, and Imperial was so close, I'm still leaning toward the idea that they never had gold.
If that changes maybe I'll paint them. But I'd hate to lose history...

I just, today, found one of these in an antique store in FL. Same deal, no indication it ever had gold paint. I got mine for $3.00. Not as good a deal, but still great if it is in fact a real vic's grog glass. Has anyone found out anything more on these "naked" versions?

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