I was kinda wondering if anyone knows why the old check list that was on the harbour lights site is no longer available. Does anyone know if there is such an item anywhere on the internet.

I am getting ready to unload a bunch of my collection...I kinda bought them for the love of lighthouses and the theme at my shore house but the way Harbour Lights handed a good thing and ruined it, I am very upset that instead of going up in value everything is pretty much declining.

I guess like everything else money talks but the day Younger & Assoc decided to blow the number of the limited additions into the 9-10k range it devalued everything....especially with prices going up and up...

I think i paid on the secondary market over 500 bucks for Barnegat and Sandy hook, now i'd be lucky if i could get half that...

I am very disapointed in the way Harbour Lights handled their business...

I have about 175 lighthouses, many of my 95 on are low numbers; 249-2502. Is there a big difference to collectors if they have low numbers rather then those in the thousands?

LisaD

Somebody else want to handle this angry customer?

Sorry, LisaD...

The folks who are hanging around here still LIKE Harbour Lights for the most part. Not always happy with the company or its decisions, but most seem to have gotten over it or left our midst.

Your post stuck me as kind of like going to the PTA meeting and calling the other folks' kids "dumb and ugly."

"...and by the way, does anyone know where I can sell these kids?"

It's not just Harbour Lights that have dropped in value. It's everything. And you can "thank" eBay and the state of our economy.

Yep, we all recognize the problem created by increasing edition sizes.

Good luck. BTW a "low number" is something from 11-99. Your range of numbers won't bring anything extra, in my opinion.

LisaD,

John is right about Harbour Lights not being the only thing dropping in value. The whole collectible market has taken a dive. Many of us collect Harbour Lights because of the quality, the great people that created the company and our love of lighthouses. For myself, it is more important to have the lighthouse I want than a particular edtion number. Yes, it is great to have a low number but that's just icing on the cake. Also many of us didn't go into the lighthouse collecting business to make money. We have them with no intention of parting with our collections.

Harbour Lights has done more than just make lighthouse replicas. They have been the catalyst for bringing peolple together who have the same interest and passion which resulted in making many new friends all over the country and working together to preserve an important part of our country's heritage.

I'm sorry you haven't experienced the real joy of collecting Harbour Lights. It has had its ups and downs but show me something in life that hasn't. You gotta look at the glass as half full, not half empty.
Judy

I agree with John. It's not just the HL market, it's others as well. I'm also a Hallmark Christmas ornament collector. That Ebay market is very similar to the HL market. Some that are very costly to obtain, but most cost alot less.

In my opinion the value is not in the market, it's with the collector. Buy what your heart says to buy and you'll never be worried about your investment.

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Lighthouse Loon

thanks for the replies and i guess i sound like i've got a ton of sour grapes going on but the worst thing Younger could have done was raise the limited numbers, that was nothing more then greedy and it did help devalue everything.

I started collecting in 97 when i bought my shore house and with over 175 of em in a 1200 sq foot house im kinda getting tired of clutter...lol..I will keep those that i've visited and keep the nj ones but im thinking i need to get rid of many...I dove into this thinking the values would at least stay at what i paid for them, not go down over 50%, especially those purchased on the secondary market.

Ok, so three digits is nothing special....learn something new every day..

Im not sure the entire collectable market has gone down, I know stuff like precious moments has but come on, they have how many pieces out, talk about flooding the market.....I don't collect them but i was trying to help a friend unload some on ebay, (she has just about every one ever made) and the prices in the guide book were running at least 50% higher then the prices on ebay....

Lisa,

I believe that many of us -- deep in our hearts -- must agree with you. Ten thousand was way beyond what could possibly be sold to collectors. But, unfortunately, the business world is not always kind or considerate.

Please try to hang in there.

bobo

Not all of us collect all of the HLs either. Some only collect the lights they've seen, others, a certain region, etc. Yes, the 10,000 edition sizes turned out to be a mistake, but every business makes mistakes, 9/11 didn't help the collectibles market, and now with gas at $3.00+ a gallon, others will have to cut back on non-essential spending. And then there is the matter of how much space can one dedicate to displaying and/or storing their HLs?

Depending on what lights you have to sell, you might still be able to obtain a higher than retail price for them. Some of the original 17 for example, or variations, etc. I would suggest buying the new Harbour Lights Guild that will be available from a dealer near you sometime in October to read up on rare items and variations. Right John? Some information about the soon to be published guide in The Rumor Mill thread.

No one answered her lead-off question, where is the listing?

The listing is temporarily MIA - it had not been updated in some time and I believe that it is in the process of being brought up to date. It was a valuable tool for many, and provided a convenient way to keep track of what one had in the way of HLs.

Lisa ~ I feel your pain. Although I am not a huge collector of HL (I mainly just purchase the Long Island ones), I was an avid collector of Boyds Bears in their heyday. I no longer collect them and have wanted to get rid of most of my collection for a while, but now I'd only get pennies on the dollar for most of them.

It's my personal opinion that enlarging the edition size of LE's was done to accommodate dealer requests for additional lights of a particular model. Collecting was near an all-time high at that time so Harbour Lights felt the need to raise the edition sizes so most everyone who wanted a particular light would be able to purchase it for retail at their local dealer and not for an elevated price on the secondary market. Unfortunately, the bottom started to fall out of the market shortly thereafter leading to a surplus of those higher edition lights.

Once again, I don't believe this is Harbour Lights' fault. They answered the call of their dealers for more stock in a good collectible economy and tried to add to their collector base by producing additional lights for each model. They wanted "John Q Collector" to be able to purchase their lights at retail. Unfortunately, expendable cash soon dried up when the economy started to fall after 9/11. Ever since 9/11, the collectible industry as a whole have suffered. This was not caused by making a few thousand extra HL's of each model.

Personally, I feel Harbour Lights did what they could to appease their collectors after the bottom fell out of the market. We now enjoy smaller edition sizes and the quality of workmanship on the HL's never ceases to amaze me. All this while maintaining retailing pricing at a level close to the earlier offerings.

Lisa, value increases a wee bit as you go from 3-digit to 2-digit flag numbers. You might get an extra $5-$10 for a real low flag number. Most of the people who are purchasing on the secondary market are looking for low flag numbers to replace the higher ones they originally purchased. Granted there are a few new collectors gathering as many different models as they can while the price is so low, but overall the secondary market stinks. It still amazes me that people are willing to purchase a piece for big money then they are willing to sell it for pocket change. My advice would be to hold on to your HL's for as long as you possibly can, and hope for a better economy and surge in interest in the collectible industry in the future.

We are all in the same boat. I have somewhere around 30-35 thousand dollars (retail pricing, not true value) of HL's in my home. I buy and sell when I can, but most of my activity is me buying and not selling. It's frustrating to see HL's on eBay selling for next to nothing of their original retail value. I figure sooner or later we will run out of people who are willing to sell for pennies on the dollar, so to speak. Like many of our fellow Collector Forum members, I still believe in Harbour Lights. There is a future for them, and they too will rise back from the bowels of a poor economy.


Keep the faith, Lisa! Don't give your HL's away. There are better days coming.

Bob

Lisa or anyone else who are in the processing of giving up your harbour lights, have you given any thought of donating to a lighthouse organization? The gift would be tax deductable and you would be helping save and preserve lighthouses. If you have a Cape St. George, I would be willing to pay the shipment to our Presidents house on St. George Island to raffle off at the next event.

Boy John thats the truth. In went to the camera shop I deal with not long ago to tradeup some of my equipment and the low price he gave me was like an insult. When I said something about it he said "don't blame me, there's a new sheriff in town and its called ebay. They're setting the price for just about everything." He then proceeded to show me what the were quoting for my trade. Needless to say, I just bought what I wanted and keep my "not so old stuff". Gave it to Eileen my daughter.

The moral Lisa is "hang in there."

Oh and just FYI, the new owners of HL stated they are lowering the #s produced on the LE's to, I believe,a little less than half of what it is now. If I'm wrong on that someone please correct me.

That's good news about the edition numbers.

I agree that ebay has and will probably continue to hurt the retail businesses. I'm probably one of the few who has only used ebay once and it wasn't a very good experience. One other time I was going to bid on Burrows Island and then I forgot about the closing date so I missed out on that completely!

Judy

The first place I look before buying anything is on ebay. You'd be surprised how many items are selling for full retail. There are also quite a few 'hard to gets' that are above retail. Most of the latest and greatest are 'no great deals' and the oldies are just that. Most camera stores have an ebay store too!
Bob