St. Augustine Red Roof

While we're looking back at older pieces, I wonder who out there has a "RED ROOF" on the house attached to the St. Augustine tower. I bought my St. Augustine in 1994 at a store in St. Augustine. The dealer's display model had a "brown roof" on the house attached to the tower. My son-in-law being from St. Augustine told me that the roof should be red so I asked the dealer to check stock to see if there was a "red roof". He came back with one and I bought it. I didn't know about variations back then, I only knew I wanted the correct paint color on the roof. Since that time I have also bought the common color(brown roof) once I found out that I have a variation(red roof). I have only heard of 5-6 of the St. Augustine pieces with red roofs.

Anybody out there have a "red roof" variation? My St. Augustine with the red roof is S/N 3319.

My #3852 is brown.

Mine is flag# 2177 and it has the brownish color roof on the keeper's house.

Bob

Mine is Flag #1903 and is BROWN, but it seems to have a little orange in it.

bobo

The only other red roof that I know of besides the Artist Proof that HL used for their brochures, was bought on the secondary market from a collector that lived in Daytona Beach

Rich,

Mine is red and is flag number 3452. We are talking about the building entering into the lighthouse correct?

Ken

Congratulations Ken on having a red roof St Augustine. Yes, it is the roof of the building that enters into the lighthouse. The actual roof on the real lighthouse building is red. I don’t know why Harbour Lights painted it brown. It has been red as long as I can remember and I lived in this area for 19 years.
According to Jim Rutherford, a paint variation that was not a manufacturing decision OR MISTAKE was not a variation. He called them artist preferences. Jim Rutherford knew his Harbour Lights but obviously, he did not know the Harbour light collector. This color variation is not in any of the books and only known about thru this forum. It is definitely sought after as a variation by many collectors including yours trulely.

Thanks a heap, DANIEL.

I think you just destroyed my chances of finding a red roof St. Augustine on EBay at a reasonable price. But all's fair in....... Just kidding. I do appreciate all the background information.

bobo

Are we talking about HL 138 ?

YES

See Ken, I bet you didn't know you had a rare variation.

I have #178/5500, brown roof.