I just received my Regional St. Auggie and noticed that the COA was for the GLOW. Has anyone else received the wrong COA? At least I am assuming that it is the wrong one. I will call HL to make sure.

Jim,
I also have 2 Regional St Augustines and both of them have "GLOW" certificates. I never noticed until you brought this up. Hopefully the certificates are wrong as the piece does not mention "GLOW" on the bottom.

me, three

I purchased my St. Augustine at the Regional in St. Augustine on 20 March. It too has a "GLOW" COA.

Were you led to believe that the special piece was going to be a limited edition? If so, how many were to be made available?

Bob

They are not numbered and the count of them is TBD. While not LE in the strictest sense of the word they are by far not GLOWS. None of the past regional pieces/event pieces have ever been GLOW's to the best of my knowledge. None of the stickers (box or piece) indicate GLOW. I called HL but haven't heard back from them yet.

I believe we all was led to believe it was a limited edition:

1.Regional event pieces have in the past always been limited to the year of the event.

2.There is nowhere on the box or on the lighthouse that calls it a Great Lighthouses of the World. All other Glow’s have it called out on the box and the lighthouse.

3.The GLOW number was not used. 401 to 499

4.2004 Regional Event Exclusive is written on the box and on the lighthouse. I look up the word Exclusive on my micro soft office word thesaurus and came up with the following meanings: elite, selected, restricted, limited, private, fashionable and special. All these words pertain to a limited edition not an open edition.

Since we saw the word Exclusive on the lighthouse and didn’t check all the paperwork I guess we all just assumed that it was exclusive (limited).

If the St Aug is really a GLOW,
I feel that a sales marketing tactic has just been used on us.

I look at it this way. It still looks alot better than the last GLOW St. Augustine. Whether or not this is a GLOW, it is, in my opinion, the best St. Augustine HL there is.

I don't have one of them yet. I would venture a guess that the piece is not a GLOW but they didn't have any Regional Event Exclusive COA's ready in time so they put the GLOW COA in the box just so the purchaser would have a history of the light.

Any bets on the GLOW COA being replaced by the proper COA at a later date? I would guess it is a distinct possibility.

Bob

I don't believe this piece will be categorized as a "GLOW" since it is an event exclusive and will probably be unavailable past 2004. It should not be categorized as a LE since the LE of St. Augustine retired when the Southern Belles were released around 1992-1994.

I'm not terribly happy with the release of this piece in general. There seems to be nothing unique about it to release it once again - it's not like Southeast Block Island on the Move, or Cape Hatteras on the Move". Thought once an LE was retired, it was not supposed to be re-released. I can understand a new version with some gimmick (like a lighted edition or Christmas), but cannot agree that this version is much different, other than a better technical and detailed reproduction.

Since the whole situation is out of control and I guess Harbour Lights fighting for long-term life, why not go ahead and release an improved version of Portland Head?

I contacted Michelle at Harbour Lights and asked her about the "GLOW" History Card and she said that this was the first time that she had heard about this card. She was going to check into why they sent a GLOW card with the piece. I'll call her back in a day or two and hope she has an answer.

Interesting points, ctlights! I don't share your opinion about the situation being out of control though. The folks at Harbour Lights know what they are doing. I'm sure the folks at St. Augustine are extremely grateful for the new release and money-maker for their lighthouse gift shop. I'm sure there are many people in that area that collect every version of St. A's they see, including those by other manufacturers.

We as collectors sometimes fight change as we see this as something that might devalue what we already have in our collections. Are the pieces in your collection worth as much as they were a few years back? I would say, probably not. Is this any fault of Harbour Lights? Some might say it started with the larger editon series of 10000, and they would be partially correct, but adjustments have been made to lower the edition sizes and things still aren't like they used to be.

Go to a collectible store and find a person you can speak honestly with. Forget HL's, talk about other collectibles. They would probably tell you that the collectible market has probably dropped 20% last year, and maybe even 20% the year before, for a total of roughly 40%. The market is down and is not showing any signs of a great recovery on the horizon.

Dealers have their share of hardcore collectors who continue to buy product no matter what is happening with the market. The business they lose, or have lost, is the marginal collector who was never in it for the long run.

This is a great time to be a new collector. It's a lot less expensive to rapidly build a collection now. Bargains are everywhere! The only problem with that is the dealer who plays by the book suffers because of it. The cheaper prices devalue the collections of those folks who bought at retail or inflated prices on the old time secondary market. Some people win, and other people lose. Maybe someday, things will turn around and we'll all be singing, "Happy days are here again!"

Now on to Portland Head...Yes, I would love to see a full size even-bigger-than-the-original HL 125, released as a Christmas piece. I can't figure any other way to do it without it being classified as a GLOW. The original Portland Head was too small, in my estimation. The GLOW versions were even smaller. Bring back a larger Portland head as a Christmas Piece (please)!

Bob

I don't have a problem with HL redoing the same lights over & over...what irks me is how oversized some of their pieces are getting to be...I'd rather spend what precious few extra $$$ I have these days on lighthouses, NOT curio cabinets.

If you read the last two posts and ctlights original post you'll see why no matter what HL does they won't be able to please everybody- the all have a different view of what is acceptable.

I guess that just undermines the old adage- You can't please everybody- so make sure you please yourself.

I think HL has done an admirable job of responding to the problems that the large editions caused and the general slump in the collectibles industry. They have introduced some lines that allow them to earn money so they can stay in business and continue to maintain their high standards in the Limited Editions Collectibles.

Have they tweaked what seemed to be unbreakable rules in the past- yes they have, but for the most part they have kept faith with their collectors.

It's a tough line to walk between pleasing your hard core collectors and staying in business. I think they have done a great job of balancing things- not perfect, but then who is?

Dennis

And how many other companies out there have pitched in and so gratiously and abundantly contributed to lighthousing groups to help them raise money for their preservation efforts?

Maybe beside the point...or is it?

Judy

Well I received my revised COA for the St. Augustine Regional Exclusive. It now indicates that it is a " Limited Edition Figurine strictly "limed" to production on 2004 ". Obviously limited was mis-spelled . I pointed that out to HL and they indicated that they would be correcting the COA once again and the revised ones would be available in 4-6 weeks.

Pardon the stupid question, but what is a "COA?"
Judy

"COA" is Certificate Of Authenticity.

Thanks for the reply. I should have known that one! I guess I should check my COA on my St. Augustine regional piece.

Thanks,
Judy