Hi Shepherd62 - Welcome to the forums.
I see you're from Houghton Lake MI. I spent many a youthful summer at Higgins Lake where my folks still have a summer cottage over by Gerrish Township Park.
As for the Great Lakes Stamp Set. I'm afraid I can't be too encouraging to you. Others may provide different opinions.
I'm basing my answer on the statement that your sets are #500 and #501 - if you only used this as a hypothetical, please state the actual numbers of the sets which will affect my comments.
The so-called "B- error" affected something less than the first 500 sets (but more than 400 as I recall - someone correct me if I'm wrong). Unless you can show a receipt that indicates you purchased them in 1995 the first year of issue and that receipt shows the serial number as B-something, it would be hard to prove they were issued in the first year of availability with the "B" prefix instead of the "A" prefix.
There is some conflict as to whether, in fact, an "A-" set was or wasn't issued in 1995 (and perhaps again in 1996.) There have been collectors who have claimed to have purchased an "A" set with a serial number under 400 in 1995.
As for the consecutively numbered sets, they might have extra value to a speculator. There might be a small premium paid by some collectors who value 3 digit numbers. Over 5,000 of the releases were shipped as matched number sets (but dealers may have broken up some when selling individual pieces.)
Overall, the stamp sets seem to sell for less than or approximately original retail today.
Of course 3 of these pieces were originally issued as "GLOW" open editions and were later changed to limited editions. For more information see:
Open 2 Limited Harbour Lights [This message has been edited by JChidester (edited 11-03-2000).]
