Don the Beachcomber Mug Question

My edition of the mug is older I'm guessing, it's glazed on the bottom & no signature at all, long neck. I want to look further into it. Interesting Tom I know there is a story here. I'm just glad you have the mug what a treasure! How's that PhD. reading coming along? we need to go out! Hi Ilene and tiki in the oven. Give a shout out to the tummy for me!

Kelly,

Nothing like a good mystery! Somebody out there has to know a handwriting expert...

We'll solve the Don puzzle one of these days.

Ilene (Pirate Chick) says hi! Tiki in the oven waves hello (sorry...no sonogram available this week).

The reading for the PhD exam is going slowly but surely.

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody and having a mai tai at the Big Tiki Bash on the 21st and Sam's on the 28th.

Here's a third signature from the bottom of another green Don head that was posted on http://www.tikiroom.net/gallery/main.php/marked/aly.jpg.html

HA HA....so this is saying it is a VERMONDE ORIGINAL !

...not that I have any idea who or what Vermonde was. Obviously the ceramicist or kiln. A search on google yielded this:

Did you mean to search for: VERMIN

Yep, I think it is Vermonde. Here's another signature off an ultra rare Don mug I'd never seen before on e-Bay or in the wild. It just says "Vermonde" on it.

Found the pic again at http://www.tikiroom.net/gallery/main.php/marked/air.jpg.html

I've got a coconut mug by Don that says "Desert Ceramics" on the bottom so Don definitely got around.

On 2007-07-26 17:44, naugatiki wrote:
I've got a coconut mug by Don that says "Desert Ceramics" on the bottom so Don definitely got around.
[/quote

My friend Kristin gets around too so, what does all this mean..... :roll:

Sorry if this is not "NEW" tiki knowledge but I just got some information while trying to find out about a mug on another thread that was shaped like a model RC engine that was stamped DAGA on the bottom.
I received a few emails from Dan, the owner of DAGA Hawaii LLC and he had mentioned the following in one of the emails:

"Aloha Scott:

Went to Tiki Central - cool site - remember so many mugs from 70' & 80's. Many times we would make pieces and they didn't have the Daga bottom stamp. Mojority of those were designed and manf in our factory on Oahu.

We made all the original Trader Vics pieces. No Daga on most of them, some would have the PP. The Sneaky Tiki from Trader Vics might have the PP on the oldest ones. Tahitian Lani too.

Used to go to various Tiki sites and fill in the blanks for Tikis or other shapes "unknown maker". Got any ??? on where from- let me know. Most of our pieces have a story behind them. Seen the Original Don the Beachcomber head with hat. We did that with Don The Beach as a model."

I then sent him two pictures of these mugs, the long neck one and the short neck one and asked him if either of these was one of his and got an email back saying:
"Hi Scott:

The 1st pic is ours - got the same one in our office. Was thinking last night about early PP mugs. The Maui Lu was a different design face (very simple) to begin with and was in lt blue-called Tonga. Then went to a larger version in "gold" with the more tiki design. Same color as most of our bamboo mugs. Shape has always been the curve. Maui Lu is smaller version in brown at their request as it was a give away with ticket purchase. That is why the embossed name also.

So Here's the mug he said was a DAGA(or PP) mug:

Anyways sorry again if this has already been established... I hope to someday get one of these mugs for my collection...

Aloha
Scott

http://www.BeachBumz.com

[ Edited by: beachbumz 2009-05-21 13:15 ]

[ Edited by: surfalaia 2009-08-05 07:40 ]

The Daga said mug looks like mine.Its a two color glaze.It looks very cool in person.
I would like to eventually find a green Don to add my collection as well.
This appears to be the short version.

I've read through this thread twice, and looked on Ooga-Mooga, concerning the gold/brown "short neck" Don mug.
First, it looks like there are two different, but similar designs. One is "smoother", and has less detail (see the picture posted by 'beachbumz', above - apparently from Tiki Shaker's Ooga-Mooga collection). Not certain, but it looks like it might have an unglazed bottom. I see at least two of these, on Ooga-Mooga.
Compare that with the picture posted above, by '1961surf', and on page 2, by 'ModMana'. This design has more definition, and a glazed bottom. I see at least 4 in Ooga-Mooga. There is no mention or notice on Ooga-Mooga that there are two separate versions of the mug.
Now, to further complicate things. On page 2, 'boutiki' mentions a late-90's knock-off version, which Sven then identifies as having been produced by the execrable (some would say) Allen St.James, AKA Tiki Trader. So, which design did he copy? Or, is one of the designs the knock-off, in toto? Sven mentions an Asian look. The detailed design does have a sort of Asian/hapa haole look, more on some than others, possibly depending on how the glaze settled.
Does anyone have any information on the alleged knock-offs, or suggestions on how to identify/differentiate them? I found and bought the mug, pictured below, at a small town junk/collectable store, recently. If authentic, it was a good deal - not terribly expensive, but not cheap, either. If it's the knock-off... I don't know. I'm wondering if I'm a champ or a chump. Can anyone shed further light on this? I'll keep it in my small collection, anyway, but... I gots to know!

On 2007-07-26 17:44, naugatiki wrote:
I've got a coconut mug by Don that says "Desert Ceramics" on the bottom so Don definitely got around.

I have one that's stamped "Tepper Bar Supply".
I think they are out of Venice California.

My mug is one of the smoother Beachcomber mug..

..with the flat bottom. The lack of detail and the fact I found it in scotland has always made me wonder if it was bootleg version. Now mine is made in two parts the head and the hat cast separably and then joined, are they all made that way?

Anybody else spot this in the latest email from tiki farm, I guess their Beachcomber will be well marked..

http://www.atomictonytiki.com

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki 2009-08-13 12:12 ]

On 2009-08-13 12:12, atomictonytiki wrote:
"My mug is one of the smoother Beachcomber mug.."

Actually, yours is one that I was calling the "detailed design".
Yours does seem a little smoother, like maybe from a worn mold, but it's the same design as mine, I believe.
:down: See, yours has more detail than the other one :down:

"..with the flat bottom. The lack of detail and the fact I found it in scotland has always made me wonder if it was bootleg version. Now mine is made in two parts the head and the hat cast separably and then joined, are they all made that way?"

Mine does NOT have a flat bottom... hmmm. But the hat is a separate piece, joined to the head. I think they all are.

"Anybody else spot this in the latest email from tiki farm, I guess their Beachcomber will be well marked.."

I assume Tiki Farm will do their replica of an original - it looks like our mug - cross-hatch pattern on the hat, etc.

Am I seeing something that's not really there? Maybe I'm wrong about different design versions. Maybe they are all the same mug, and the different levels of detail are because they just used the hell out of the molds.

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2009-08-13 15:23 ]

aloha Limbo Lizard, to me it really looks like those two Don's are the same but the one on the right is from mold that has been well used and extra glaze on it... I don't know... Maybe you should just send me that mug and I'll investigate it further someday.. :wink:

That Tiki Farm version looks great, as do all the other designs they have coming out this year..
CANT WAIT!!

I think what we have hear is a fine example of the slow death of a crisp mug mold, due to the multi part mold I think they must have just them until they fell to pieces.

When a direct bootleg copy is done you loose almost all the details and the copy is about 10% smaller due to slip shrinking..

...compare the pmp mug to the hobbiest version. Until somebody admits to owning a Tiki Trader Beachcomber mug so we can see what the differences are, I'm now happy to assume all of the mugs are original, just that they all came from some over worked molds.

Tony, I think you and beachbumz are right, it's the same mug, but cast in various stages of the life of the mold(s). I messed around in Photoshop, and made the pic of the "smoother" mug semi-transparent, and overlayed it on your mug. It matched perfectly.
I'm fortunate, I guess, because the one I found has quite good detail. I paid $50 for it; not a "thrift-store-steal", but not too bad, since we're assuming it's authentic.

The one that you see in the Tiki Farm picture is the one commissioned by Don the Beachcomber in Surf City, and it will be out soon, Holden promises. It was taken from an original that was one of the early runs. Tiny changes were nade that to a collector will identify it as a Don the Beachcomber/Surf City edition, this to protect the value of the older editions, which is our aim whenever we produce a reproduction. (Though one day this will be an "older edtition" as well.) It will only be sold at or through the restaurant in Huntington Beach.
There are two more reproductions in the mill. The Barrel will come first, then the Portrait, then the Barrel. The Vicious Virgin, a Don the Beachcomber Surf City original will come next, and then a Coconut, which will be self-distinguishing, since it will bridge between the small Coconut and the large Coconut issued by Donn, with a size that is smaller than the Barrel but larger than the small Coconut, and will better fit today's DTB Original drinks.
By the way, we still have, at the restaurant only, a few of two of the three mugs that we had Tiki Farm produce for the "informal" opening of Don the Beachcomber in Surf City. They are pieces that Tiki Farm had produced in the past, but which were in their storage, which we had them re-glaze with the information of the opening. They are about the most scarce of collector's mugs, since we only had a couple of hundred run. AND...we still have a few of the old Sam's Seafood mugs, in honor of our predecessors.
Which was probably too long an explanation of a simple subject.
Aloha,
Art Snyder
Don the Beachcomber

Art, I always wanted one of these Don the Beachcomber mugs. I am so happy you will be selling them at Don the Beach, can't wait to see them. Will you be serving drinks in all the new mugs?

Here are the new Don mugs. Holden included these pics in his latest e-mail announcing the Tiki Farm Summer and Fall roll-out. Crazy Al did a great job on the sculpt!

The Longneck II Design

They're great - I must have one (or two :) )!

It has been said they will only be available at Don's..yet when I checked the website like provided I came up with nothing...not any mug of any design...did I miss a secret code needed for logging into the website?....8)

I think they set up stock for the site and then sell it off till they run out. I have noticed that they sometimes have or have not had stock listed. may be wrong but......

My buddy and I were down at Don's on Monday (07/26/10) and asked specifically about these mugs. We were told that they had them but they were waiting to hold a release party before they become available to the public.

Unfortunately, they did not know when that date would be.

I was really hoping to pick them up too, but I guess I will just have to return after the release.

This just in...

The new Don the Beachcomber mugs will be available at Tiki Oasis X at Crazy Al's booth!!

More information here...

Don the Beachcomber Huntington Beach Mugs at Tiki Oasis!!!

Unfortunately for me, I'm selling this mug from my original post.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120839940044?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Mahalo for looking!!

Question on The Original Don the Beachcomber Panama Hat Mug (skinny not fathead).

Were they ALL signed 'Vermonde Original' on the bottom?

No..flat bottom no markings.