DATE: Sunday, June 1, 1997                  TAG: 9705300290

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 12   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: INDOOR EXCURSIONS 

SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NAGS HEAD                         LENGTH:   98 lines

OUTER BANKS SHOPS SELL UNUSUAL SLICES OF THE BEACH

Six senior citizens in Trenton, N.J., now have shell sculptures sitting on their shelves.

Tiny turtles, fashioned from shells and adorned with googly eyes rimmed in round wire glasses, caught my grandmother-in-law's eye last week. We were shopping for souvenirs, hitting old haunts along the beach road, ducking in and out of doors between drizzles. She selected the thumb-size sculptures - which sold for less than a dollar each - to take home to each of her friends as mementos of her Outer Banks vacation.

``Wouldn't someone like a snow dome with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the center and red and blue rings floating around it instead? Only $2.49. What fun!'' I cried. ``Or a coconut carved into a pirate's head? Or a plastic crab-shaped harmonica?''

Gran was not swayed. ``Turtles for the ladies,'' she insisted. But she broke down and bought sparkling seagulls on wire sticks, too. They sold for 50 cents each. ``They'll put them in their plants,'' she said of her friends - and her finds. ``Seagulls because it pertains to where I am with you. They're just little things to bring back instead of candy that they'll eat and not keep.''

From tasty gifts like saltwater taffy to gut-wrenching gags like shark embryos stuffed into corked bottles, Outer Banks souvenir shops sell everything from the religious to the ridiculous, the lovely to the ludicrous.

Others have only a coastal theme - or no relevance to the area at all. We found pencils topped with plastic flamingos, which don't fly within 500 miles of Nags Head. There were puzzles of penguins - which aren't on any barrier island beaches. And there were plenty of palm trees - which only appear on Outer Banks putt-putt courses whose owners have imported the expensive plants sometime since last hurricane season.

``I buy whatever shells I like. I don't care if they're from Nags Head or not,'' souvenir hunter Sherry Brown, 42, said last week inside Newman's Shell Shop. Brown was visiting the Outer Banks from Pittsburgh, Pa. Newman's was the first store that opened on the beach - in 1939. It's a must-stop for shell seekers. And it's still a great place to scout out souvenirs.

``We just got here today. And I wanted to grab a few quick things, right away,'' Brown said, stacking white sea biscuits - imported from the Philippines - into her palm. ``These'll go in my bathroom back home and remind me of the beach.''

Some people have a system for souvenir shopping: They make out lists of who to buy for, and sometimes even ideas of what to purchase. Others just browse, hoping the perfect piece of their vacation will leap off the shelves - so they can take it home and prop it up on their own.

``People's tastes change. But it seems to swing according to the economy, from cheap to expensive stuff,'' said Pat Preston, who has owned Souvenir City on the beach road in Nags Head for 19 years. ``Lighthouse stuff is our best selling gift items. Shell candles, wooden ships, those run close seconds. And t-shirts - those, by far, are what people buy first.''

At Newman's, the clerk said hermit crabs are her hottest selling item. More than 2,000 of the crawling creatures are sold each summer for people to keep as pets. Dozens of others crawl in Newman's annual hermit crab race. For $12, shoppers can get the deluxe, do-it-yourself, hermit crab kit: medium crab, extra shell, food, terrarium, sponge and water dish included. These souvenirs, unlike shell sculpture turtles and pet rocks, require a little more care back home.

The ceramic whale sculpture that holds wet sponges, however, doesn't need any attention after you sit it on your sink. It sells for $7.99 at the Trading Post on the beach road in Kill Devil Hills. Another way to bring back a piece of the islands is to buy a glass bottle filled with sand and tiny shells. It says: ``Beach front property, Outer Banks, N.C.'' on the front. Sale price is $2.59 at the Trading Post.

Fireworks, plastic sharks, windsocks, sand buckets and fishing supplies are found at almost every Outer Banks outpost. Many also stock sparkling sandstone dolphins in hot pink and purples; ship's wheel-shaped ash trays; and key chains of all kinds. Thimbles and silver spoons abound.

And my favorite novelty item (``Call it junk. Call it souvenirs. Call it whatever you want. But DON'T call it trinkets,'' Preston pleads) was a petrified puffer fish - which once really swam in the sea, before someone shellacked its outside and glued googly eyes above its small beak. The large ones sell for $2.98 each at Souvenir City - string included.

Preston had sold out of small ones.

That's why Gran got the shell turtles. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON

Miniature lighthouses, like this Cape Hatteras Lighthouse model,

sell the best at Souvenir City, which is owned by Pat Preston.

Graphic

SOUVENIR FINDS:

Favorite finds while souvenir shopping:

Plastic blinking lighthouse with red and white stripes $3.99

Rubber crab pencil sharpener 49-cents

Picture postcards, some for as little as 10 cents each

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse snow dome ring game $2.49

Red plastic crab-shaped harmonica $1.98