A sad day yesterday. The shop where I decided to start collecting HL's, went to my first signing event and where I stood by several connected collectors without even knowing it, has evidently decided to get out of the HL's market.

I decided to give them a visit yesterday and I knew something was amiss when I saw a table up front with HL's marked down 50%. The common very large prominent display with all the lighthouses was gone. Then, clear in the back of the store on a few shelves there they sat, all marked 50% off. I didn't have to ask what was going on. I know that probably many of the Hoosier collectors have frequented the "Party Shop" Hallmark store in Warsaw, IN, as well as Dorothy's others which always had a great supply of old and new releases. I also found more displayed at their discount/bargain center just down the road where there was also several AB's for sale also at 50% off.

I must say that I was sad to see this. I figured this would be one dealer that would stick with HL's since they have been around from the beginning.

As Dylan sang, "The times they are a changing..."

Bob

Digger,

How very sad. Another high profile store decides to give up on Harbour Lights. But maybe this is just an indication of things to come.

How sad, how very sad.

bobo

A lot of the big dealers have dropped the Harbour lights line in the past few years. We used to have about eight or nine dealers within a half an hour of Albany , NY -- now there are only two left.
About half of the those who still carry Harbour Lights only sell the Little Lights. With the new owners perhaps we might see Harbour Lights become stictly a catalog sales only product - at least for the LE's.
Time will tell !!!!

I should have mentioned that this is the store where the incident happened that sparked the "connected collector" name tags. Where several of us where present for a signing event and didn't even know it. Someone, John I think it was you, decided we needed badges to wear so we could identify each other at events and thus the badge was born. So we didn't just lose another dealer, we lost part of this groups history.

Does everyone still have their original "Connected Collector" badges? Remember they were the ones that had Bill wearing that Hawaiin shirt that John posted for us to download and print.

Digger, not to change the subject but I passed a truck today that had the name on the truck "Digger Enterprises" or something simmilar.... from Bremen, IN. Know anything about this ?

And after the mall where the Party store is located blocked their parking lot to commerical truck traffic I had to quit buying from them and shortly there after found a full time autoship dealer.

I agree that it is a sad state of affairs. I also have no dealers - if they carry HL, it's only the LLOM. From now on, I will probably be dealing with an out of town dealer - hate to have to do that!

He's a lifelong resident of Bremen. He's a reformed Amish in his early 50's. Don't know where he got the name, but a really nice guy. He owns a manufacturing plant/s that produce vinyl fencing and has made a fortune. Probably comes from those years of white-washing the family fences during his Amish days and decided there had to be a better alternative.

Drove past the place on US 6 this afternoon . . .

Party Shop had a very large HL display. Also an interesting and very large Hallmark store. They have displayed (or at least they did) every ornament Hallmark has made. Also have many previous years ornaments for sale.

Yup dave, the HL's display is history and the lighthouses are soon to follow but they still have the Hallmark ornament museum. They have most of the older ornaments, some hard to find, for sale at the store and also MANY more common ones at their discount center for 50% off. They had several of the Hallmark Star Trek ornaments discounted to 50% and many of these still sell for very good prices on ebay.

We had two stores close their doors, including the dealer that got me started collecting. It’s the same one my daughter worked at, very sad. We still have one dealer close to the house but they closed the Randles supermarket and the drug store that anchored the shopping center so they may not be there much longer. HL missed Texas completely last year. I had to get me event pieces from San Diego. I hope the coming year is better.

Chuck

Good Afternoon - I'm taking the time to read some of these posts finally. Don't do that often anymore as you may have noticed by my absence over the past years. I'm happy to say that we're hanging in there with Harbour lights for the moment. I have lost several autoship folks over the past couple years. Between this so called "booming" economy and the space problem long term collectors now have, it's getting harder to maintain the long term collector. However, I have a very good relationship with several members of the Louisville Lighthouse club and still some very good customers here in Florida, Alabama and a few other states around the country. So, if you're looking for a dealer who's still getting good allocations and good numbers, please give me a call. I do have a couple of low autoship numbers available. I also will be hosting Bill Younger again this year. The date is 3 June. I believe he's only making two appearances in Florida so I feel quite lucky.

Terry The Bronze Lady of Orlando www.bronzelady.com

It is really good to hear from a dealer, Terry, and thanks for hanging in there. You may start to get more mail orders if some of us can't find dealers in our own areas!

We still have quite a few dealers in the area where I live in Seminole.

I get mine at the Bronze Lady in John's Pass at
Madeira Beach which is anly a few miles from where I live. They hae a good display and will get anything that they don't have. Somebody told me that the owners were related to the owners in
Orlando. They're great to work with,

We have long had a rule not to promote a dealer in the forums, there are a lot of very good dealers still out there but these forums are free of ads and need to stay that way..

This thread was started as a thread about a long time dealer not selling Harbour Lights any more and not a thread about promoting others dealers..

What we have always done in the past and continue to do is post that we have information about a low number available or such and to have people email us if they are interested in information about a certain dealer..

Thanks, Paul. Right you are.

Well, that didn't work - whatever I did to just repost the previous post. Anyway, my comment was on the being related... Actually is my ex-brother in law who owns the store in Madeira Beach. my brother owns the building. That's where the Bronze Lady started way back when. My dad opened it in 1977 under another name and changed it to The Bronze Lady in mid-80's. Beautiful place. I spent my first 5 years in this business working there. So much nicer than Orlando. Much more laid back. Will get back to the coast one day.

Terry The Bronze Lady of Orlando www.bronzelady.com

Hi Terry,

Thanks for letting me know your connetion with
The Bronze Lady in Madeira Beach. Have you been to the new Bronze Lady furniture store, also at
the beach? I checked it out the other day and it's really neat!