Rich,

Remembering that I haven't been tuned in to the site for quite awhile, I don't know what three pieces you are looking for, but I can almost guarantee that I won't have them. I don't have all the variations, and I don't have first Hatteras or first Coquille in any shape or form. I have a LE Bolivar with edition number 13 and a LE Seven-Foot Knoll with number 7 [Kim surprised me with that when I was going through a rough time]. Other than that, I have a representative of all the pieces through 2008, with the conventional variants [Admirality, etc.]and a few more duplications, but probably not the astonishingly rare things you are seeking. I figured, however, that there will be someone who got into Harbour Lights late in the game who would want to trek to Wichita to scoop up the whole batch. Probably need a 20-25 foot panel truck. At any rate, that's what I am foreseeing in the next year or so.

I'm still remembering that I was at the Lookout Gift Shop at Depoe Bay, OR, in 1991-2, looking at five or six of the first Coquille, and thinking "what a goofy looking lighthouse" at the time. I also remember their having the first Hatteras, and thinking it a bit spindly [and, I didn't like the spiral!] I wasn't collecting, then! I didn't start until 1995, when I wanted to get a Split Rock for my folks. [And Split Rock had just been retired! HL had just put out the Postage Stamp set, with all five pieces neatly fitted into a special display box. Not being familiar with Harbour Lights, I was frustrated that none of the dealers would sell me just the Split Rock piece. I got the whole set later, with all the same numbers—in fact, I have two sets—but they did not come packed in the one display box as I had seen them. I've never seen that display box, since.] By that time, of course, you couldn't touch a Coquille for under a thousand. I paid a fairly high price for the first St. Augustine, but I could never bring myself to go big bucks for the Coquille. Hatteras was entirely out of the question.

At any rate, sort of like you, I have to say that I am relieved that HL is going, because it WAS frustrating to keep watching pieces come out that I couldn't acquire. The irony, though, is that I had long ago indicated on this site that I hoped that they would do Squaw Island. And they did—nearly, if not conclusively, their last piece! Unfortunately, they decided to dress it up for Kris Kringle and hide the details with snow and decorations, so I still wasn't tempted. The same thing happened with Michigan City—they dumped snow all over it.

About the only thing I would still really want is the Fourteen-Mile Island [is that the name—I don't have a reference handy?—piece that is represented as a ruin. But, with close to seven hundred or so boxes in the basement, already, I just can't justify acquiring one more item. Durn!

Danny