Did anyone else notice the Hillsboro that a Fla dealer put up at a starting price of $99 (reserve this limited piece before it arrives and insure that you get one). Some non-informed person bid $200

Does this qualify Hillsboro as retired before issue and already on the secondary market? (Tim what does this do to your calculations?)

How can a person be on the internet (as a Harbour Lights collector) and get gouged like that. Thanks to John, many of us have found this site and a way to exchange information. But there are still some poor souls out there that are struggling on their own.

Fred,

Can't you get the E-mail address of this poor unfortunate and guide him/her out of the wilderness of ignorance? Its the right thing to do.

Well we're working on it - about 30 new registrations each day as the Legacy arrives around the country.

See Tim's post - Any item put on allocation is considered "sold out" at that time. So Hillsboro, like a few others 'retired' before introduced.

>>Tim what does this do to your calculations?<<

Happily, not too much. The calculations in Factoid #11, part 3 consider Hillsborozilla as already retired; it retired the day HL put it on allocation to dealers.

Is it on the secondary market? Apparently it is if you saw someone selling Hillsboro futures. This reminds me a bit of the action surrounding NPL prior to the San Diego Reunion. People were selling and trading their pieces contingent on delivery. 'Course there, all the pieces were already scheduled for the hands of collectors, and I very seriously doubt all the 'zillas are spoken for yet.

There are lots of "poor souls" out there struggling on their own. But if they are bidding on e-Bay they obviously have the resources to find their way here. If you're Internet literate sufficient to send some guy you've never met several hundred dollars for a piece not released, then surely you can key 'Harbour Lights' into a search engine.

[Minor Rant Mode On:] Part of the problem here is too many people using guiding hand services like AOL. AOL doesn't teach you how to fish, they rather you buy fish directly from them. Get off AOL; they play on the 'mystery' of computers to the uninitiated. People need to learn to do things for themselves - like use the Internet. Its the greatest information tool mankind has ever created. You don't have time *not* to learn how to use it. Unless of course you don't mind paying $200 for Hillsboro before its released. [Rant Mode Off:]


Fiesty Regards,
__
/im :-)

Amen - Tim

I still try to email some of these new collectors when I see these "out of line" bids on ebay. Richard

I saw this on ebay & was shocked to see this.

You know its funny that someone would bid that much for a piece before it even hits the streets. I have 2 dealers that are on the automatic ship list. Both will call me when they arrive & hold one for me. Its just a matter of which dealer gets one first.

I know its a very limited edition, but I feel that those of us who are serious collectors can find this piece.

Harry R

Not to pick on you, Harry, but it will be YOUR kind of action that assures that. By putting your name in for more Hillsboros than you plan to actually buy, those dealers will have some un-assigned ones.

Be fair, collectors. Put your name in, offer a deposit. Make sure that your dealer will get as many as they hoped (most dealers know by now) and that you are on their list.

But don't 'reserve' more than you plan to buy.

John


[This message has been edited by JChidester (edited 01-17-99).]

>>I still try to email some of these new collectors when I see these "out of line" bids on ebay.<<

Yes, of course you're right Richard, and I agree folks should be helped. Things certainly are much better today in terms of getting information out.

I know I probably paid more than I should for a couple early secondary market purchases. I would have welcomed a fellow collector sharing their knowledge. Hopefully "collector" still implies enthusiast, and that people want to learn about their hobby. As witnessed by our forums.

And JC's comment is spot on. I feel obligated to make a purchase if I tell a dealer I will. This helps to build a relationship with the dealer and when that happens you have a much better chance of them making sure you get a piece.

Rgds,
__
/im

Megadittos.

I have in the past and will continue to pass on to people when I feel they have been taken advantage of.

People have told me "Thank You" and on the reverse side to "mind my own business"

No matter what we are told if we feel that we are doing this for unselfish reasons and only to help others we must continue to speak up.

Also I have written dealers when I feel that they are misreprsenting a product by over-charging.

Never hurts to speak the truth.

Bob

My question is why is an HL authorized dealer pre-selling a piece with a minimum reserve of $200 in the first place and requiring the entire cost as a deposit. I'll bet there are some local collectors who probably buy alot of their collection from them, and were maybe told that their allocation was already taken by others (just a possible assumption) Not a good practice if accurate.

I totally agree with helping collectors find pieces at reasonable prices, and believe many of us Wackos are very helpful when we can. R@R is a great example.

---

-RodW
[This message has been edited by Rod Watson (edited 01-18-99).]

I normally don't collect variations and don't speculate by buying multiples when I think an item will be hot. However, I have in the past gotten a few duplicates. When my original dealer went out of business and before my new dealer could get started, I dealt all over the country. Today I have two sets of Keepers and Friends, ordered in June of 97, and I forgot to cancel. Oh well, I have more than one curio and they are nice LITTLE conversation pieces and set off the lighthouses real well.

This Wacko totally agrees Rod. I can't believe a dealer would pre-sell a lighthouse at an inflated price. This is totally non customer service oriented. This drives me crazy!!!!! Sure its a free country, and sure dealers will charge what the market will bare, on the other hand I think this is a Collector Education Problem. I'll wager that the dealer didn't bother to educate the collector on how Harbour Light Retirement occurs and that the collector could call Harbour Lights to recieve the phone numbers of other dealers that they could optionally deal with. Yeh, the dealer might lose this one sale but their ethics would be intact and the potential for happy customers would still be there. If you were a customer of this place would'nt you be a little nervous. How many lighthouses would you have to buy a year from this place knowing you could sleep at night and not have to worry about being put into this situation. Dealers wake up!!!! Retirement Doesn't mean UNAVAILABLE not on the shelf to the retail buyer and it doesn't mean that every lighthouse has someone's name on it. Please, Please stop attributing to these horror stories. Isn't retail enough of a profit?

Heres a story for you, this is one of the horror stories that got me into the Retired@Retail business. In December 97 I walked into a Dealers store. I was chatting with them for quite a while and the dealer was telling me that he also sold Secondary out of his back door. I guess he got pretty comfortable talking with me and he dropped his guard. He began to tell me how an older lady had been searching for the Big Bay Point Lighthouse (Christmas 95). He told her that they were long retired and that he could get one for her. Yeh, get, he got it right off his shelf 2 minutes after he talked to her. Then he proceeded to sell it to her for $1,000 plus tax. Can you imagine this? I sure couldn't and I was having a hard time hiding my disgust. Needless to say this dealer has never gotten a referral from me and never will. Merry Christmas to the poor victim. I hope the recipient never finds out how many of these lighthouses they could have purchased with that kind of money. And the thing that really drove it home for me was the smile and feeling of accomplishment this dealer had on his face when he told me the story. It wasn't many months later that John and I started kicking around the Retired@Retail page.

Help your collectors help you. The happier they are the more they buy and the more valuable all our collections become.

Shame on the Bad Dealers, Don't use them, you have plenty of other options. The easiest is good old Harbour Lights Customer Service for the location of another dealer.

SeAnDiEgO
Locked in the Beavers cage, the Beaver has the key.

[This message has been edited by BuyGlass (edited 01-18-99).]

It is a total shame that these unjust actions take place. As long as these "shady" dealers are out there and there is a dollar to be made, it will continue.

On the bright side, I would have to guess that the great majority of the dealers out there are honest. These are the ones who care about the customer and are looking for repeat sales.

Education is your best weapon in this battle, and this web site is a good place to obtain some good knowledge.

-Todd

I am appalled that a HL sanctioned dealer would do such a thing and extremely grateful there is such a great site to help reduce such a scalping. I hope that HL will have some sort of chat with the dealer. I know that a main goal in life is to make money but sad to see it done at another's expense.

Thank you again John, for this wonderful site.

It disgusts me also to know that a dealer involved in such a small collectibles market would take advantage of a single sale. With the publicity of the web? I wonder if he thought that so many people (collectors) would find out? I know that if it were up to me, he would never do it again, or not sell another Harbour Lights Lighthouse. I wouldn't hold it against the buyer if he backed out of the purchase. I wonder if he feels as insulted as I would? Dud he know what he was doing??

Buyer beware! If the purchaser had any HL savy he or she should have known that he or she was paying a premiun over and above retail. Are we all to blame for putting this unforunate buyer in that position by talking of a quick sell out of Hillsboro and make sure you have one reserved with a dealer or you might miss out.

As of this date I have not reserved a Hillsboro. Sanibel Island cause a similar frenzy and I still see them at retail on dealer shelves.

Last point, has anybody bothered to look up who the "shady" dealer is? Has anybody determined whether the person may not be a dealer but reserved a dealer's allotment for resale? You can't blame a dealer for someone else's deals. Obviously the seller is counting on supply and demand to put more dollars in his or her pocket.

Do I really feel bad for the buyer? Yes, I suppose I do. I wouldn't want it to happen to me. I wouldn't want it to sour a new collector away from the HL line either.

That's the word from the East Coast where it's 50 degrees and raining..

It is a present retail dealer, Bob. They have their own web page also.

---

-RodW

Hi Rod,

I'm sorry to hear that it is a regular HL dealer. Perhaps HL should drop them a line about fair business practices. I've always admired the HL dealers that sell their retired pieces at retail to support HL collecting. I'm sure all of us have found that needed piece at one time and were thrilled to find it at retail when it was selling for much more on the secondary market.

Would it be libelous to post the name of that dealer in this Forum?

That's the question from the East Coast.

Let me temper this thread a bit. I don't want this one situation to reflect poorly on good Harbour Lights dealers.

In the case of Hillsboro, this dealer may have simply had too many requests for too few in their allocation and felt like an 'auction' was appropriate. Or they may have been 'testing the water' to see what the secondary price might be on this instant retired piece.

And it could actually be that the high bid of $200 was placed to take the piece 'off the market'. This bid might have been made by a person who knew exactly what the situation was with Hillsboro Inlet and was willing to pay a premium for a 'low 3 digit' edition number.

I'm not sure that we can say for certain that the reserve price was something over retail ($125) from the bidding history -- although others with more e-bay savvy that I can clarify that.

Retail dealers selling secondary doesn't mean they stashed some they bought at wholesale in a closet until retirement.

There are retail dealers out there who buy pieces back from collectors they sold to, paying appreciated prices and then reselling to others, helping new collectors in this way.

Very seldom to you hear a store like Sean's -- and it should only be take as a black eye to THAT dealer, but clearly that kind of incident isn't the norm with HL dealers.

John

[This message has been edited by JChidester (edited 01-19-99).]

Don't you think the Forum topic cited below might have helped contribute to the need to buy at a premium.

SOBR!
Hillsborozilla!
Get one now!
Check your list of dealers!
LE 6500!

www.lighthousekeepers.com/forums/Forum19/HTML/000002.html



[This message has been edited by rscroope (edited 01-19-99).]

IMHO that the Forum contributed seems MOST unlikely. I'd think that if the purchaser had read the Forum before bidding he/she would have had a clear understanding of the status of Hillsborozilla.

In addition, I went back and read the item description on eBay. It says that the successful bidder may be THE ONLY one to own a Hillsboro. To me that's misleading as can be for a novice.


------------------
Keepin' the flame

>>Or they may have been 'testing the water' to see what the secondary price might be on this instant retired piece<<

This is certainly not a practice I personally care for? To each their own. We were addressing an Auction on Ebay. The motives of this particular dealer are still questionable IMHO.

SeAnDiEgO

Ok Folks. The dealer in question is one of the first that I purchased from over a year & a half ago. He informed me about a number of things that saved me from making several "rookie" mistakes. He has also formed a very successful South Florida Lighthouse Society that has several dozen members. (Most of them are HL collectors).

Now the facts! He only placed the Hillsboro listing on EBAY as an AD for his Gift Shop. He put what he thought was a very high reserve & thought that no one would bid that high. He talked (via phone) to the high bidder before the bidding got so high & informed him of what the reserve was & the reality of being able to obtain the piece at retail. The high bidder made an informed bid and of his own free will. This dealer has in excess of 30 avid HL customers. He did not want to sell the piece, as he has not been allocated enough pieces in the past to serve his best customers anyway.

As far as the wording of the listing, he uses a young person (not very HL literate) to enter them on ebay and I have caught several errors in some of his past listings.

IMHO this dealer has taken some undeserved hits. He seems to me a nice guy trying to do the right thing & make a living in the process.

Richard Weaver
Nashville TN

Undeserved?? A dealer Places a lighthouse up for Auction at $80 above retail as a free advertisement for their business in a Online Auction House with no intentions of selling it?? I don't know who the dealer is but this story gets more currious as it unfolds. Great stuff to educate the Newbies.

Collectibles are great, aren't they!!!!

I can't wait for the New Harbour Lights to get to the stores. I got my Fax machine all fired up to send my registrations in with.

SeAnDiEgO
Wheres that darn Beaver with the key?

He's in the Fog Signal Building having a Brandy Manhattan. Keeps muttering something about leaving the water running and building a lodge.

Thanks for exposing the "Hillsboro Scalper". If the guy made an innocent mistake maybe he'll be kind enough to let the buyer out of the deal and still pay Ebay their fee. That would be the right thing to do to satisfy this somewhat sour deal in all our minds. It is right and just to do so.

That's the word from the East Coast where the skies are clear and the temperature is 32 degrees.

Guess I had better put my two cents worth in on this. I'm the high bidder on e-bay for Hillsboro. The seller is not the person to blame for this as some people would like it to be. All he did was to offer it. Nobody had to take it. I bid on it with both eyes open after talking to the seller and 2 other dealers. The low number was not the only reason I bought it but it helped. I have been collecting, not selling, HL for about 2 years now and have about 50 pieces. As someone who has not been collecting for a long time it is almost impossible to get low numbers unless you go into the secondary market and then sometimes the quality of the piece isn't up to par. I WOULD BE WILLING TO DICUSS THIS WITH ANYONE. My name is Pete and I'm at peterjs@teleport.com

Hi Pete,

I've been collecting since September of 97 and now have around 170 pieces. I own many 3-digit serial numbers and even more 4-digit numbers near the end of the edition run. The quality is consistent about 95% of the time. As a matter of fact my Grosse Point is a real high number and is much better painted than the lower numbered ones I've seen.

If you are satisfied that you didn't get taken on the Hillsboro deal, then that's good enough for me. I'm sure all the HL family would not want to see a collector be disenchanted with the line because of one incident.

Keep smiling...the quality lives on long after the price is forgotten. : :

Pete, thanks for the explanation of a very unusual transaction. Now let's just allow this thread to sink into oblivion.