Gee, I wonder

With all the broken ones out there, I wonder what an unbroken piece might be worth. I was one of the lucky ones, mine wasn't cracked. I'm sure there are others, I wonder how many will show up on Ebay after the new ones are sent out. :rolleyes:

I have yet to find anything wrong with my Cheboygan Crib, so I asked (in another thread) how many people don't have a damaged one. So far, it looks like it's you and me.

If you have what you think is a non-defective Cheyboygan, how do you think that piece will make out if you had to ship it somewhere. You can guarantee safe passage if you hand deliver it but a couple of "bumps" in handling by a shipper may soon reveal your Cheyboygan was an accident waiting to happen.

I wouldn't take a chance on buying one on eBay knowing the short history of the piece. Why bid on something just to chase someone for an insurance pay-off.

:rolleyes: Bob :rolleyes:

You could say the same thing about CH1 and Point Arena, but they still get sniffed after...and by the way, yes, I have two intact Cheboygans...

You are right, Bob. At least for now, mine looks intact. I will give it an extra dose of TLC as long as I own it.

Chances are if you have one now that appears to be okay, and you never subject it to the possibility of rough handling through a shipper it may remain in the condition it is now. Under those circumstances, I would say you will have a truly rare piece in a few years.

I also feel it would be safe to sell or buy one if the exchange could be in a controlled environment such as hand delivered. I guess time will tell what happens to this piece in the future.

Bob

I realize that HL thought they were doing everyone a favor by not requiring the reunion participants to send back the damaged Cheboygan Crib. But In a long run I think it would have been better if they did. What I see now is a rare production of a limited edition just being increased by an other 529 of the same thing. Subtract the broken pieces and maybe you have brought the production down to 800 to 900. I doubt that any of cracked ones will be thrown away. So I will not deduct them from the production amount. They will be saved by the owners hoping that the miss-spelled reunion version will be worth something someday. And according to ebay the Cheboygan Crib is all ready bringing in a fare amount. $261

If I owned a non-defective miss-spelled reunion version of the Cheboygan Crib (NDMSRVOTCC), I would be tickled pink and would be very thankful to own one. If I didn’t have one, would I pay more for it than the revised version? No. I rather have the new and improve model. With most of the owners being over 50 and probably have the grandchildren read the labels on their prescriptions; I would not trust them in finding a hair line crack on a tree trunk.
Yes you guys have a rare collectable BUT in my opinion AT THIS TIME I would not plan on it being anymore valuable than the “new and improved version”

Maybe if you had the NDMSRVOTCC CERTIFIED by seller’s grandchildren that there are no cracks in it and pack it inside several boxes creating a small monument the size of a doghouse, then maybe I would feel comfortable in purchasing one.

Now on the other hand there are many collectors out there that love rare variations
And there are even more speculators. They are the ones that will determine its value not me.
According to Dave H the breakage problem my be caused by the way it was packed.
If this is the case the breakage problem may be solved just by carefully repacking it
And the extreme packaging I mentioned above may not be necessary.
The problem of tinny cracks being missed could be solved by having the area in questioned properly enlarged onto a jpeg and sent to the potential buyers. In other words the owner may have to prove that it is in excellent shape.
The final problem is the flooded amount of damaged Cheboygan Crib that are still out there. Paul is right; those with damaged ones should throw them away. Or better yet HL should require the Cheboygan Crib owners to send back the damaged ones to receive the new and improved one. This would be the biggest help in keeping your special reunion pieces valuable.

Daniel, several times I mentioned that there ought to be a "recall"; I meant that they should all be sent back. That includes the ones which seem undamaged. It just seems to me that would have preserved the original intent of issuing this light. I would be willing to return mine, although it appears to be intact.

The good news (which is old news) is that the defective Cheboygan Crib has a flaw that makes it easily detected; the miss-spelled word reunion. That fact alone allows both types to coexist in our collecting world without the secondary market people wonder which version they are looking at.

Maybe Harbour Lights should offer a one-for-one trade. You turn in the flag area of your old one and they give you a replacement with the new improved model. This would eliminate anyone keeping their old one intact if they wanted the replacement.

We all know Harbour Lights has done that for years with dealers. A dealer gets a defective piece, they cut the flag area out, and return that to HL for a free replacement. We also know cutting the flag area out destroys the piece and renders it of no value to any collector.

That would give everyone who owns a Cheyboygan Crib the option of keeping the old or getting the replacement. It would be your call. Do you feel lucky?

Bob

I don't see Harbour Lights doing that. Nor do I believe that would be fair at this point. They've already said collectors could keep the "error" piece. If you were fortunate enough to get an undamaged Cheboygan Crib, consider yourself lucky.
Personally, I didn't feel people should be allowed to purchase four pieces. From a collectors standpoint, one piece should have been the cutoff. However, since "collectors" were allowed to purchase multiples, I could care less if the production line is 500 or 1,000.

If I recall correctly, we were allowed to order two apiece - of course, if you are a couple, then you can have four. It does give the opportunity to collectors to get extras for friends who couldn't attend - and then there are those who promptly put them up on ebay.

You're right, two apiece was the number. Which was 3 more than it should have been. As I said before, I feel it should have been one per collector max, possibly one per couple. That makes it a rare piece. AT MOST it would have been a run of around 400 - and probably a lot less than that, because I don't believe everyone would have purchased one. A lot of couples would have gotten just one. As far as getting a couple more for friends that weren't able to attend - sorry, you didn't go, you don't get one. Or you go to ebay and buy it for three or four times the issue price. If you're worried about the value going up, that's how it's going to happen.
However, this isn't how it went. Collectors were allowed to purchase multiple pieces, driving it well into the 500s (to my knowledge, possibly higher - I'm sure somebody has the exact numbers). And lets face it, not everybody bought extras so that they could give them away to friends. Some were bought to trade, and others were bought so that they could hopefully be sold for small fortunes at a later date. And before anyone decides to take offense to that last remark (as a few of you did in the past to one of my comments), if I would have thought the piece was going to increase significantly in value in the future, I would have bought more than one also. I didn't forsee that happening, and I still don't now.
Bottom line is, I like the piece, and that's why I bought one. It looks nice sitting amongst the others in my collection. It's "value" wasn't going to change that whether there were 500 or 1000 others just like it.

My Cheboygan Crib is all in one piece! In fact,
I didn't realize until I read this, that some were broken. Somebody also mentioned that reunion was spelled wrong. Mine is spelled right.

Kay, your sign on the lighthouse isn't spelled like this?

Kay,

You might want to check the thread below to see pictures of the type of damage for which to look. Paul and Ron posted some really good closeups of hairline problems.

http://www.lighthousekeepers.com/forums/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=44;t=000094#000000

Thanks Paul,

I just rechecked my Cheboygan Crib and I was looking at the flag on the base instead of the
sign and it is spelled wrong on the sign.

Grace,

I also rechecked the trees with a magnifying glass and they look O.K. to me. It's kind of hard to tell with they groves in the bark on the
trees.

The stress cracks would probably appear as horizontal lines on the tree trunks..