High prices for tikis and meres

Press, 12 May 1979, Page 15

High prices for tikis and meres

Maori artifacts may be the field for you if you are looking for inflationproof investments. A recent auction in Wellington grossed $48,471 for the fortunate vendors and set new summits for tikis and meres at public auctions. The National Museum was a major buyer.

Greenstone tikis were in particular demand. A pre-European Taranaki hei tiki with bone neck toggle, believed to have passed into European hands in the 1860 s was sold for $3600. A seventeenth Century Auckland tribal tiki was sold for $2600 and a Wanganui tiki dating from before European settlement went for $2500.

A Kapiti greenstone tiki bought by a Swedish family whose ancestors were whaling in Cook Strait about 1800, was sold for $3400 and a Marlborough tiki, recently displayed in the Canterbury Museum, went for $3OOO. A tiki found in the sand dunes at Paekakariki was sold for $2OOO, an Auckland tiki with a dark green patina went for $2400, and a pre-European greenstone tiki of olive green realised $l5OO.

But the top price of the auction was $3BOO, paid for a pre-European stone mere (211 inches) excavated from the sea near Tauranga. The mere was encrusted with sea and shell life, but this can be .1

cleaned off with acid, and it is one of the longest known meres.

The auction, held by Dunbar Sloane, Ltd in Wellington, was bouyant throughout. A pre-Euro-pean brown basalt mere, with a smooth polished surface, was sold for $l2OO. A nineteenth Century whalebone kotiate mere realised $l4OO. One of the finest items was an early nineteenth Century Maori feather cloak with a fine taniko border, which sold for $2lOO. Other cloaks and feather work also met a ready sale. There was a strong demand for greenstone pendants.