Art & Inspiration Rat Fink Statue

Seems to be a few of these out there
Does anyone have the back story on them?
About when would these have neen done?
Its about 2footish tall and cast aluminum.
No casting numbers or marks that I could see.
Price looks on the high side.

Thanks you.
Doug

 

$495 doesn't seem that bad.

 

That in the yard should keep most varmints away!!

 

Damm I'd love to have that and hear what my HOA would say!!!

 

not old at all. They still make them here in Wi. someplace. I better rephrase that and say a guy in Wi. sells them plus Dinos, bigfoots, etc. I thought he did them but he might be getting them someplace else.

he has a little store but the one you posted above doesn't look like his place at all but looks like his ratfink.

He runs them thru an auction off and on here in Wi.. I will have to see if any are running right now or if I can dig back into the old auctions and see where he is exactly.

 

I have no information on these statues.
My last employer son does make a aluminum statue of a Rhinoceros.
Was a school project while in collage. Where spends weeks or months working on the mold, where he meticulously smooths out the imperfections. then hires a shop to help him pour the aluminum.

Then he spends hours polishing the finish on the statues. The Rhino is lying down, about 2' tall x 3' long.
After making/selling several he, as of 8 years ago was on his 3rd new & improved mold.
Had a couple Rhino statue's on loan to a art museum & a art gallery with a price tag of $10k each.
I know he sold one 8 years ago at that price, I helped build the crate to ship it in.

I think the ratfink statues look pretty cool, the $495 price not bad for the amount of work that goes into them. You can see the divots, scratches, imperfections from the mold. That is where the artist needs to spends hours on the mold perfecting it, Even though they already have months in just creating the base mold.
But yeah it could be the statue was made last week by a collage kid, or not .... but still a common practice.

 

ok, I went looking for it and I cannot come up with any present or past auction of that guys stuff unless I am in the wrong auction site but I am pretty sure I got the right one. it is like northern or western part of Wi. < maybe Neenah area? At least that is where the one site of that auction company is located at and i thought he was close to one of their offices.

he had a fairly new fresh wood/log building with all kinds of aluminum sculptors around it for sale. maybe this fall there will be another auction because I believe he just ran his store thru the summer months or at least downsize it to inside only.

 

There is one on Fleabay right now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/332234481448

 

Hey Doug, where did you take that picture? Looking in the background I see what looks like Pegasus, mobile red flying horse. the guy I am thinking of had those too. Maybe the guy I am thinking of is getting them from this guy.

 

that guy in texas sold 40 of them that Hutkikz posted above, so who knows where they actually are coming from. the auction co I saw them at made it sound like the guy they were selling them for made those aluminum statues but maybe not now. If I am remembering correctly they came in 3 different sizes too or i should say that was what he had.

 

ok, last post from me until I can get more concrete info but the more I think about it the guy I was watching online was from like the Manitowoc area. Not sure about now but years ago when I was in that area there was quite a few aluminum foundries up there.

I know it was an area I was in my past and thought I could kill 2 stones at once, go to this guy and bring back memories from my younger past.

 

Texas guys ought to be buying off fleabay, if can't find better source/price - Cool

 

I have a Ratfink creeper stashed upstairs

 

This was in central Mn.
This was the only real hot rod related item in the place. Didnt check out the other statues. But I see the connection to possibly being from the same foundry.

 

There was one similar to that in the ba*****t of the Autorama a few years ago.

 

I was a huge antique sale in Ky ., 2 months ago , same Fink was for sale $450.00 . There must be a lot of them out there to see one in Ky .

 

Put a small orange traffic cone on it’s head and call it a garden gnome lol.

 

I have one of the bigger ones...3 feet seems about right. When I bought it in Socal, the guy told me they were being made in Mexico. If you look at the cavity from underneath it looks like it is made up of hundreds of small pieces of aluminum. It's not a smooth casting. Looks like they piece it together somehow in a mold and then melt it together..it looks weird to me.

 

There was a bunch of them at spring carlisle this year,were 395 i think,kicking myself for not buying one.Think they said they were made in mexico,they had a bunch of stuff too,deer,lion and some funky looking light fixtures also.they were not painted just bare aluminum. Had a painted one on display.

 

The one that Black Panther posted above without seeing the feet better but if it stands on feet and not a base, they sell quite often on ebay. 1 guy has sold like 300 of them. The one with the base sells there to but isn't as popular.

The guy in Wi. has them both way, painted and unpainted. He usually has around 10-12 of each laying around. rat fink is usually painted the normal way but like the dino I mentioned earlier he has unpainted in raw aluminum, painted like Sinclair dino and others are painted like Flintstones dino.

 

Would the Roth family have a copyright on Rat Fink?

 

They do but those are as good as the money you plan on spending on lawyers fighting for it.

 

Here’s a 3-D printed one!
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/3d-printing-rat-fink.1230432/

 

Aren't those statue's supposed to have whiskers and the left hand flipping the bird?

 

I wonder if Roths family are getting any royalties or if it’s bootleg fodder

 

I think there was one at Back to the 50's last weekend, they wanted $350 for it.

 

I ran across one of these today in Oklahoma, 'Made in Mexico' on the bottom. I would guess that if you ran across on made by someone with Rat Fink licensing it would be worth sustainably more.

 

I wouldn’t be caught dead with it unless it was a genuine licensed product, then I probably couldn’t afford it

 

I’d love to have one to keep my neighbors away!