Post #514742 by tikicleen on Wed, Mar 3, 2010 8:06 AM

hey paranoid! thanks for the link, and hope things are going well in nyc for you!

vic- holy smokes, you must have perfect vision! where is the difference??! :)

sabu- nice find in comparisons. im guessing that both places were supplied by OA? any guesses on who carved these fellas?

david, nice article! it is awesome to see someone pick up the torch and turn it into a raging inferno. im glad to see all of your hard work get chronicled in the local newspaper. i'll admit, it is difficult to be completely out of it now in getting leads on the islander (read: a touch of jealousy), but i do enjoy seeing the updates and madly respect your sleuthing skills and dedication. i just wish that i also could have received the same response and interest from the stockton record when i was sniffing around there doing research for the initial post of this thread. i hope you are able to uncover more stories, pictures, and artifacts -- and are willing to share the stories on tc so we can vicariously live through you!

On 2010-03-02 17:08, abstractiki wrote:
Thanks everyone for your posted comments! That is a metal disk of some sort, I couldn't take it off and there was no disk on the bottom. There were no other markings on the Tiki other than the "ISLANDER" on top. Maybe some one put it on to cover a hole in the center. It looks like it is attached by big nails. There is no easy way to really get it off.

I have been looking at it more closely along side the the BOS photo. I'm not sure now if this is an indeed the same exact Tiki as in the photo. Does any one else have an opinion on this?

as for the tiki being the exact same one, i would have to guess maybe(?) if you look at the woo family's photo, you can see another one at the bottom of the other stairs. i think these guys were staffed next to the bottom (and maybe tops?) of each stair railing. you can see in the pic that there is metal in the back of them, maybe to stablize them to the wall. i would have to guess that they were supplied by oceanic arts, and that there were probably quite a few of them. neil pollard told me that each stair rail had tikis that supported them, but i could never get a very clear picture as to where they were and what they looked like. someone sold me a tiki rail a few years back that claimed it was from the islander, but it was marked "trader vic's" because the seller felt it would draw more interest. however, i'm pretty sure now that he was bullshitting me. :)