Do you save the Styrofoam

I've added several lighthouses to my collection recently and I'm not sure where I'm going to store the boxes.

I was wondering what other HL collectors do. Do you store the boxes intact with the styrofoam? Or do you disgard the styrofoam and collaps the boxes? Or something else?

Thanks in advance !!!

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Lighthouse Loon

I luckily have room in my house to store the boxes intact with styrofoam.

Keep them intact with the styrofoam. However, my collection is a lot smaller than some of the people on this forum.

I keep the boxes folded up in rubbermaid containers in the garage. I nopw have 5 containers holding over 300 boxes. I do not keep the styrofoam or peanuts because I don't plan on selling any pieces. If I did, and offered my Coquille for sale(without the original peanuts) or my Erie Land Light(without the original styrofoam), I could get the same price either way and don't have to put up with the problems of the styrofoam. It is totally up to the collector as far as I'm concerned whether to save the styrofoam or not.

Totally agree with Rich. I saved the peanuts and styrofoam for years but finally had to discard them. The boxes are folded up - take up a heck of a lot less room than with the foam.

I'm glad to hear that you can collapse the boxes. I don't plan on selling my lights, but thought that boxes and styrofoam should be kept for value(thinking of inheritance). That will give me more room!!!!

You bet! I reclaimed a whole big closet when I folded my boxes up. And my collection wasn't all that big at the time!

I have all my boxes and all styrofoam inserts. I might have cleared out 1/4th of the peanuts, but I have all the rest.
I recommend keeping the boxes. Even if you throw away the styrofoam and peanuts, if you decide to move or sell you can always buy packing, but not original boxes. HL sells boxes but not original ones and if you did buy then it could get pricey. Also packing is expensive also, And with the price of oil going up so will the price of styrofoam(a petroleum product). I personally feel the styrofoam will eventually be replaced with paper products.

If you do get rid of the boxes I recommend selling them. I could always use some of the old blue types.

Oh, yes, I hope no one is throwing their boxes out! Just the thought of it....

One of the reasons I keep the styrofoam,is in case we move. This may be our last house, but have a feeling we will move at least one more time.

Yes, I do save the styrofoam inserts. Two-thirds of my HL's are in storage in my home and I sincerely feel they are much better protected in their styrofoam mold then they would be without it. There are so many intricate details on the newer HL's that are much better protected then if they were bubble-wrapped and packed in peanuts.

I buy and sell many of these pieces and having the styrofoam mold is a must for safer shipping.

Bob

I have kept it all until now. I live in a condo and it's taken over one of my closets. I am now in the process of just keeping the folded boxes and getting rid of the rest.

There is no way we have room for the styrofoam but we have the boxes. They sure take up a lot of room too but we would never part with them. I dread the day we move. Hopefully it won't be for many years!
Judy

I have saved every box, peanut, and styrofoam packing. Yes, it takes a lot of room. It's probably good that my basement is unfinished.

Come to think of it, I don't even have room for many more lighthouses. Oh well ......

bobo

It's great that so many of you keep the foam; I think it's preferable to do so - wish I could but I live in a very small house where closet space is at a premium.

Its great to hear what everyone does with there boxes. Right now I have a wall of HL boxes that is growing higher and higher in one of the rooms in our house. I don't have the space to store them with the styrofoam. I'm leaning towards disgarding the styrofoam. I plan on keeping all my lighthouses and don't want to ever move, so I think that's the way to go. Thanks for everyones input.

Yes I keep the foam, but I only have six HL lights and three AB ships.

I have keep all of my boxes and foam. I keep them in big rubbermaid tubs in my attic. We have property in the country and will be moving in a few years, so it is worth it to me to keep the boxes and foam.

I keep my 10 or so boxes (all HL products) with styrofoam in my closet. It's kind of a pain, because I have mountains of other useless stuff in there. But I'm a completist - I can't lose what I see to be an essential part of my HL.

As Bob said, the newer pieces are too intricate to dump them. With things like the delicate tree on the ELL (HOPEFULLY you take the flagpole out if you pack it!), do you really want to leave these extremities out to the elements? It'd be like...I don't know, but it'd hurt.

For some of the older pieces, it might be okay to toss the inserts. But with the recent, more intricate ones, if the piece has any especially delicate or extreming(?) areas, I feel it's a better idea to hang on to everything.

You never know when you just HAPPEN to have to move to that 10000 s.f. beach house, and then, not only will you not be able to store them all anyway, half of the HLs will break in transit.

-Mr. Has-No-HLs-Really-But-Has-To-Give-Input Anyway.

I guess if you have maybe a couple dozen or less you can find room to save the boxes with the styrofoam, but I think once you hit 50+ you've got to bite the bullet and toss the styrofoam away.

Both the boxes and the foam serve as an extra layer of insulation in my attic. But, we don't have a lot of critters to deal with up here in Colorado.

I have 1,083 HL lighthouses plus at least one of each Anchor Bay plus all the ornaments, 51 Little Lights of Mine, all the Skybound Balloons, and anything else Harbour Lights has put out. I have saved every box and all the styrofoam inserts and peanuts. I would never think of throwing the styrofoam away and would never buy a lighthouse that came without a styrofoam insert, if one had come with it originally. I have even sent lighthouses back that came without the styrofoam insert when seller hadn't divulged the styrofoam had been replaced with peanuts. I watched one particular seller that offered the same lighthouses in the same condition as other sellers for months on ebay and sold none of his because he stated that he had discarded the styrofoam and would include peanuts instead. I feel the styrofoam is as important as a certificate of authenticity that could be gotten any time from Harbour Lights. I say could because I have tried to contact the new company both by email and telephone and have gotten no response from either method. At least the styrofoam serves a purpose, and I believe a very necessary purpose. Now do you want me to tell you how I really feel?

Scott

Wow! It sounds like you have quite an extensive collection, Scott. I think I'm approaching the 400 HL mark but nothing near the size of yours.

Like you, I feel the styrofoam inserts are important. I never throw them away.

Bob

Yes Scott is one of the big rollers on Ebay for the early Harbour Lights, and it is the SCOTTS of the collecting world that create the perimeters of collecting, not you and me.
As I have said in the past, a collectable should be complete with all original packing if you want to get your max return.

In some collecting fields to maintain maximum value the package is not to be opened like toys that are sealed in cellophane. But us HL collectors have been aloud to display our collectables and then sell them for the premium return according to the going value at that time, if we kept the original box, packing material and paperwork. Some collectors will not even collect a “Canadian Made” if it does not have the Canadian sticker under it.

The collecting field has not been that demanding concerning the requirements for “Certificate of Authenticity” or the “name tag”. Probably because Harbour Lights always offered replacements for these. However in the future this may change. The new Certificate are not exactly the same as the old ones, and in the future it is possible that HL may will no longer provide that service.

Buy the way, some L.E.s came with peanuts then switched to Syrofoam. If anyone is interested I probally could come up with a list. If not I will pass.

I agree with Scott I will not buy a lighthouse that is not complete, this includes the Styrofoam insert. If one is being offered without it I will wait until I can find another. I am willing to take the time and pay top dollar for a complete piece.

I could argue the packing is valuable theory but I won't (got the t-shirt), I tossed out our styrofoam a while back and I still have a great collection, which is all on display...

What I do want to address is be careful where you store it. Styrofoam can't take heat and some attics get extremely hot..

Scott if you have a full set of the Guardians you are the only other person other than myself that I know that has a set..

BTW Skybound Balloons were produced and still are produced by Younger and Associates, they weren't sold with Harbour Lights to Don Devine..

I guess now I'll consider you styrofoam savers as the real H.L. purists! The only ones that have the styrofoam are the Christmas lights that only come out once a year. The others are displayed and their boxes are folded in the basement. I'm like Paul and worry about fires with too much stuff in the attic.
Judy

I think it's great to save the styrofoam, if you have a place to store it. Living in a condo, I don't.

I think the whole styrofoam discussion boils down to this and that is there is no right or wrong and only personal opinions or reasons:

If you think you may, or plan on selling sometime in the future, then by all means save the styrofoam. If you have the room, or want to pay for storage, then by all means also save the styrofoam.

If you know for sure that you won't be selling, or have no plans on selling, then saving the styrofoam is optional. If you don't have the room, and don't want to pay for storage, then there is no reason to save the styrofoam.

I fall into the 2nd catagory and do not save the styrofoam. I intend on paying back my kids for their teenage years by letting them figure out what to do with my collection and how to package it up should they decide to sell it. Who says that payback isn't sweet?

Whoa! For very good reasons, I always get Rich's input when I have to make decisions about my lighthouses. This is certainly one of them! Rich, if I were not already discarding the styrofoam, that sure would convince me to do so! How sweet it is!

I don't save the styrofoam and like Rich and many others have my boxes flattened in storage containers. I also don't plan to sell any of my pieces in the near future.

I do not have room to keep the styrofoam, as well as the boxes. I also collapse the boxes and keep them in air tight containers togehter with the paperwork etc.
And I would buy HL even without the styrofaom.
I always thought collecting should be fun and I personally would loose the fun, if I had a storage problem all the time!
But that is me ... others are different!

I understand the room problem and Rich makes a lot of sense.
But, at the least keep the box and Styrofoam for all low issue Harbour Lights
Like:
All gold pieces, all reunion pieces, the white-hull Mac, rotated top Grays Harbor, the ELL, and Baileys Harbor.
Also, I would keep the box and Styrofoam for the high demand L.E.’s like Big Bay and all Fresnel lens.

Your Kids will thank me.

I do keep the styrofoam innards but, I have the room to store them too. At least for the time being I will continue as long as I have the room. One problem though , I pack the boxes in larger cartons and then store the larger cartons. I haven't kept track of which lighhouse boxes are in which cartons . Going to have to go through them someday and mark the cartons and list the contents just in case somebody needs to find a box. :rolleyes:

I'm thinking I might remove the styrofoam and foldup the boxes. Store the boxes in a rubbermaid/plastic container. Mark the styrofoam with the HL # and put them in large garbage bags and put them in the garage(somewhere). This way if I need the space in the garage, I have the styrofoam ready for the garbage .

Used to separate the styrofoam from the box, collapse the box and put in HL numerical sequence in boxes, label the styrofoam, tape the two sides together, and place it in one of the clear trash bags kept in an attic. Got so's I couldn't move around in the attic without bumping into a box or bag so the bags were taken to the landfill and disposed of there.

Have close to a hundred early issues in the basement all boxed (no HL boxes) and wrapped (bubblewrap) for sale. If the box and the styrofoam is important to you, someone's out there waiting for you to buy what they have. If neither is important, someone's out there waiting for you to buy what they have, too.

Sandy