Tony Constantino, the new Director of Sales & Marketing, for Harbour Lights is working first to resurrect the rep program and get them selling and servicing their dealers. I'm impressed at what I hear - but some dealers have no doubt 'retired in place' - haven't ordered new product and been simply selling their current inventory.
Well that's a breath of fresh air! One would think the pursuit of new collectors would be a priority. Getting new dealers on the team will eventually mean more new collectors. That is exactly what this collectible needs.
If an interested collector has to travel too far to view new releases, he or she will probably lose interest. I know when I was first starting to collect HL's I visited every dealer within an hour or so drive. It was the thrill-of-the-hunt days and the hope of finding a rare find, especially at retail. We need to restore similar feelings via new collectors to make collecting more desireable. This would lead to an increase in value of the older pieces.
We all know that a person would have to have extremely deep pockets to start out now and collect them all. On the other hand, if a new collector wanted to collect all the pieces from his or her region, it can be done without breaking the bank.
Bravo, Harbour Lights! Your faithful collectors aplaud your forward thinking business practices.
Bob