Every Sunday at 6am
….without fail and often supporting the mother of all hangovers, l head off to the Trash Markets. It’s like l’m genetically set up to do it. Yes, l am in search of Tiki mugs but more often than not my best finds are carvings. You Americans reading this will be amazed that l find a mug at the markets about once every year. (Thank the Gods for the internet).
Last Sunday l got a mug (Yay). A Tiki Leilani… probably the most common mug in it’s many variations. Even Duke Carter makes the comment in Tiki Quest that the Leilani is “…much maligned by collectors”.
So l know there will be collectors out there laughing at me just about now. What can l say, l have a real soft spot for the Tiki Leilani, with it’s amber/brown lead based glaze it looks like a real Tiki mug and it was one of my first. I now have several.
I think it’s about time we stop bagging the little fella and acknowledge the fact he/she has been to more Polynesian Restaurants and Tiki Bars than the whole lot of us put together.
Cheers CN
Good score CN. I wish I could find myself one of those.
I’ve only ever found ONE, repeat, ONE tiki mug in a thrift shop and a friend recently gave me a mug she found at the same market I believe you found this one at.
Like yourself, I have found a few carvings, but even those are not something you see too often. It’s very exciting when you find something, that’s for sure.
I’ve scored barely a handful of tiki mugs in op shops (thrift stores) in Australia over a number of years. The best find was a set of 4 mint condition rum barrel mugs at a good price, I was grinnin’ like Cheshire Cat! Most commonly it’s the cheap and nasty mass produced carvings of generic ‘islander’ style, the kind of thing you look at a year after your drunken P&O cruise and wonder why you bought another tacky dust collector…