I did some research in some old Rutherford newsletters and found some interesting stuff on the Big Bay. The very first Newsletter That Rutherford published was on January 1996 and its front-page news was the Big Bay.
Big Bay was the first un-numbered HL and it made such a negative impact with collectors that the next Christmas piece was numbered. A mater of fact all the HL series came numbered except for a few. Can anyone name all the HL’s that where not numbered?
The Big Bay came with a COA (certificate of authority) that was the standard issue that they used for all their lighthouses. The problem with that was it states “Hand Numbered” and Big Bay was not numbered. So a second revised COA was sent to the stores to replace the first. Of course not all the COAs got replaced. Many Big Bays were already sold and some of the dealers never got around to replacing them with the new certificates. So we have two versions of COA’s with the Big Bay.
The edition size was also an issue with the first Christmas piece. What size should they make it? HL had no idea how well it would sell and they didn’t want it sitting around at dealer’s shelves. That would make it look unpopular. So the game plan became to make less than they know they could sell, just to make sure. The original plan was to make 3500. Could you imagine how valuable and rare the Big bay would have been if HL produced only that amount? With its popularity, my guess would be that it would have run higher than the Coquille in the secondary market. Well as we all know they came up with a production number of 5,000 and it was a sell out. The time I started collecting in 1997 the big bay was already going for between $200 and $250. Over the years not much have changed. It is still the most sought after Christmas piece and still holds the same price tag As it has for ten years.
