cf-banner.jpg
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146529 11/22/02 01:35 PM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
MtnHkr Offline OP
Cruise Director
OP Offline
Cruise Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
Someone is selling an entire collection of lighthouse, about half appear to be Harbour Lights. 208 of them he says that belonged to a 90 year old gentleman. Valued at 9000. he has set a reserve price of 1200. Should be interesting to see if they sell and for what price.

Ebay Item


Bert

No mountain is too tall if your first step is belief. -Anonymous
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146530 11/22/02 02:28 PM
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 207
J
JCRice Offline
Member
Offline
Member
J
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 207
I saw that, too. I wish the guy who's selling it good luck. I wonder how you go about shipping a 208 piece collection...?


--Jeff
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146531 11/22/02 02:56 PM
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 221
silverfox51 Offline
Wacko
Offline
Wacko
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 221
Interesting list of stuff. Sure would make a dent in one's want list wouldn't it. Several of these I would like to have but I sure couldn't use all of them with a new house of major addition. I wonder also how one ships 200+ lighthouses.

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146532 11/22/02 04:47 PM
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 477
lhlover Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 477
I'd say he'd have to ship them - VERY CAREFULLY! laugh

I wish I had the money to bid on them - that's a steal! smile


BonnieJean
bjexum@floridalighthouses.org
Visit: www.floridalighthouses.org
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146533 11/22/02 05:33 PM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
MtnHkr Offline OP
Cruise Director
OP Offline
Cruise Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
He claims that everything is boxed and ready to ship. I hope he packed them very well. What a job, packing 208 items. Better him than me.

Bert laugh


Bert

No mountain is too tall if your first step is belief. -Anonymous
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146534 11/22/02 05:41 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
Webmaster Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
Quote:
I AM SELLING A COMPLETE LIGHTHOUSE COLLECTION OF 208 PIECES. THIS COLLECTION BELONGED TO A 90 YEAR OLD GENTELMAN THAT WENT INTO A REST HOME AND SOMEHOW I ENDED UP WITH THE TASK OF DISPOSING OF IT. I DID MY BEST TO CATILOG EACH PIECE AND PLACE THEM IN THEIR ORIGINAL BOX. ALL PIECES SEEMED TO BE IN EXCELLENT CONDITION. TWO PIECES HAD A SINGLE TREE BROKEN OFF. THE BREAKS WERE CLEAN AND THE PIECES ARE IN THE BOX, 7 TO 25 PIECES ARE NOT IN THEIR ORIGINAL BOXES. THERE IS A STACK OF CERTIFICATES ON THE HARBOUR LIGHTS.I DON’T KNOW WHAT A LARGE COLLECTION SHOULD GO FOR BUT I ESTIMATED THE RETAIL VALUE AT ABOUT $9,000 I AM SETTING THE RESERVE AT $1200 PLEASE NO QUESTIONS I REALLY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE. AND EVERYTHING IS BOXED AND READY FOR SHIPPING. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COLLECTION INCLUDES MORE THEN JUST HARBOUR LIGHTS INCLUDING LEFTONS, THOMAS KINCADE, SCASSIS,CHERL SPENSER COLLINS AND OTHERS.I BELIEVE MY TYPING AND DATA BELOW IS ACCURATE 98% ? .
Not an offering that exudes confidence for the buyer. 98% accurate listing. Please no questions. 7-25 no boxes, etc.

I did some analysis of the actual listing and here's what's included:

Harbour Lights
[*]47 Limited Edition Harbour Lights
[*]4 Society Editions Harbour Lights (2 freebies)
[*]2 Christmas Editions (both Herford Inlet)
[*]1 Special Edition (Eddystone)
[*]14 Spyglass pieces
[*]13 Ornaments
[*]17 GLOWs
[*]14 Little Lights

Other Lines
[*]12 Lefton
[*]8 Scaasi Lamp Finials
[*]41 Scaasi Lighthouses
[*]2 Spoontiques
[*]4 Thomas Kincade
[*]5 Cheryl Spencer Collins
[*]12 Coll. Amer. Lighthouses
[*]9 Other items

My tally says that's 205 items plus "706 Alcatraz Middle Bay MTK w/Shoal Calif"

Let's use this to understand the major problems of selling 'complete collections'.

1. Forget the non-Harbour Lights items. There is no secondary market for any of these.

2. Among the 47 LE Harbour Lights, there are NO 'hard to find' items. Perhaps this collection included a few originally and they have been sld off already or the original collector started collecting in 1998-1999 and never bought on the secondary market.

3. So who would buy this collection - assuming it included only the Harbour Lights pieces? Presumably it would be someone who is already a collector and now is making the leap into the big time. But that likely buyer already has some pieces - and there's a good chance they have many of the ones being offered. And these are not the pieces you want to have duplicates of.

Did this collection cost $9,000? (I'm only estimating here)
[*] 47 LEs @ $70 = $4,290
[*] 17 GLOWs @ $50 = $850
[*] 2 Society + 2 Freebies @ $80 = $160
[*] 1 Eddystone @ $80 = $80
[*] 2 Hereford @ $75 = $150
[*] 2 Spyglass sets @ $75 = $150
[*] 13 Ornaments @ $15 = $195
[*] 14 Little Lights @ $14 = $196

Total for Harbour Lights = $6,071

I'm not sure of current prices on the other pieces, but I guess $9,000 might be a bit of a stretch. Perhaps $8,000.

So let's say your collection has lots of holes that could be filled by the 53 Harbour Lights pieces (counting the Spyglass items as 2).

If you could buy the whole thing for $1,200, that would be about $24 each.

You could give the Little Lights to your kids to play with and make a gift of the GLOWs to Sean or Tim.

Perhaps you could donate the non-HL pieces to a charity and get a $1,200 tax deduction... or maybe a $2,000 one.

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146535 11/22/02 05:51 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 6,801
rscroope Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 6,801
I also saw this very early this morning and noticed immediately that there were very few HL# 100 pieces and no 'finds'. Could be a great find for a newbie who was willing to take a chance. BUT Shipping might be as much as the winning bid. (John, where did you get all that extra time? LOL
...there's some chat logs I'm looking for? laugh )
Bob


LONG ISLAND BOB
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146536 11/22/02 06:20 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 12,331
Bob M Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 12,331
I saw the list this morning and wasn't overly impressed with what he had to offer. The seller would be better off putting them individually on eBay over an extended period of time. I'll be surprised if he reaches his reserve right away, alleged bargain or no bargain. The market is down and everyone wants a deal on what they want and not what comes with it.

smile Bob smile

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146537 11/22/02 10:25 PM
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,316
Pharologst Offline
Super Wacko
Offline
Super Wacko
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,316
I/m not impressed with the listing, and even if I wanted many of thepeices, it seems to much like a "pig in a poke" to lay out even $1200.



Geo H.
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146538 11/22/02 11:49 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 2,300
J
JTimothyA Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
J
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 2,300
Quote:
You could give the Little Lights to your kids to play with and make a gift of the GLOWs to Sean or Tim.
That's right JC - given 'em up! We'll hold a "Smash the GLOWs" party. Two dollars a whack. Then we'll donate the proceeds to the Collector Forums! Finally! - a reason for GLOWs. Bring that hammer down! LOL!

Rgds,
T Dre Sledge

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146539 11/23/02 02:55 AM
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 83
ga light man Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 83
With this guy selling an elderly man's lighthouses and he is now in a nursing home, I kind of wonder what will he do with the proceeds from selling 208 collectables.I feel with enough searching, any of these can be found cheaper with enough homework.I wish him well but I don't think he sell them for what he is asking.
Rick

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146540 11/23/02 09:49 AM
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 6,227
flacoastie Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 6,227
There will probably be somebody out there that will make his bid. This sounds like a great deal until you break it down like John did, but, how many people really know the prices. I guess if you don't have the time and want to get an instant collection this is the way to go. $1,200 for 47 LE Harbour lights is pretty steep. The rest of the stuff can't really be counted, especially the GLOWS.

Rich cool


Rich
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146541 11/23/02 11:03 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
DANIEL Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
I don't know why anyone would want an instant collection. In my six years of HL collecting the most fun I had was in the early years of my collecting when I hunted down the hard to find ones from dealer to dealer. Back then you didn't look for bargains as much as just trying to find them. Now a bargain seems to be the most important thing in collecting. Quality and rarity has always been my first priority. Yes, the price had to be in reason. (The going price).

This ebay item looks like a quick fix to the the sellers problem of what to do with all this stuff.


DANIEL
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146542 11/23/02 11:07 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
DANIEL Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
Tim
Who do I send my two dollars too for getting a wack at those Glow.


DANIEL
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146543 11/23/02 06:05 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 1,037
T
TERRY BARFIELD Offline
Member
Offline
Member
T
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 1,037
Quote:
$1,200 for 47 LE Harbour lights is pretty steep.
Rich that equals out to $25.53 each, not exactly what I would call steep.

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146544 11/23/02 10:52 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 7,893
Dave H Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 7,893
Terry,

Don't forget to add in shipping on all those pieces. And the unending hate of your UPS person or mail person having to deliver all of those boxes........ and you having to sign for each one if you are unlucky enough to be home when they are delivered.

Dave

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146545 11/25/02 05:35 PM
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 477
lhlover Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 477
I'd buy a bunch of them GLOWS for $20.00 a piece and more for the Limited Editions. He has a bunch that I am still trying to collect - I hope he does decide to sell them individually, he would make more money and people like me could get my hands on a few needed HL's. Of course remember that he did mention that a couple of them were broken. I wonder if they really would be worth the "deal" we would be getting.


BonnieJean
bjexum@floridalighthouses.org
Visit: www.floridalighthouses.org
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146546 11/25/02 10:36 PM
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 6,227
flacoastie Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 6,227
Terry, The price may sound right for a brand new collector but if your buying duplicates, some broken pieces, common pieces that are a dime a dozen and paying for the shipping on everything, it could cost out to a lot more then $25.00 a piece. You might even have breakage in shipment if the original boxes are missing and this will eat into you profit. It just doesn't sound like a good deal to my way of thinking, but, I'm from Florida and we have a hard time even counting down here. Have a Great Day!

Rich confused


Rich
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146547 11/25/02 10:48 PM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 351
Jim Chesher Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 351
I see that this auction now has one bidder. Will be interested to see if it gets past the $1,200 reserve price. wink


Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146548 11/29/02 12:32 AM
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 168
Gebby Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 168
I'd give him $400 for it. laugh

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146549 11/29/02 11:12 AM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
MtnHkr Offline OP
Cruise Director
OP Offline
Cruise Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
Still better than 2 days to go and we now have two bidders.

Bert shocked


Bert

No mountain is too tall if your first step is belief. -Anonymous
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146550 11/29/02 07:07 PM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
MtnHkr Offline OP
Cruise Director
OP Offline
Cruise Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
Leave for a couple of hours, Check in and PRESTO: 4 Bidders, Reserve has been met, and still two days to go!

Bert wink


Bert

No mountain is too tall if your first step is belief. -Anonymous
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146551 11/29/02 08:46 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
pierhead Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
You have got to be kidding me! confused

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146552 11/30/02 11:34 AM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
DANIEL Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
Check the counter
this one has been checked 700 times.
confused


DANIEL
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146553 12/02/02 01:18 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
DANIEL Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 3,759
They went for $1,815.01


DANIEL
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146554 12/02/02 04:38 PM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 169
cclighthousebuff Offline
Wacko
Offline
Wacko
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 169
What does the final price tell us about the collective wisdom of the forum? confused

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146555 12/02/02 05:45 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
pierhead Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
There's a sucker born every minute?

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146556 12/02/02 06:06 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
Webmaster Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
You'll be seeing these items on ebay (and perhaps the Marketplace) at less than retail in the future.

So out of this 208 piece collection, 50 were limited edition HLs. The buyer paid an average of $36 (+ shipping). Probably half of the average retail.

The buyer will make out just fine. My guess is they will net about $1,500-$2,000.

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146557 12/02/02 06:22 PM
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
MtnHkr Offline OP
Cruise Director
OP Offline
Cruise Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 3,681
Who would have ever believed! Has to be someone interested in reselling these items. GOOD LUCK!

Bert wink


Bert

No mountain is too tall if your first step is belief. -Anonymous
Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146558 12/02/02 10:47 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 12,331
Bob M Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 12,331
I'll be lurking in the shadows if the starting bid is really low with no reserve at eBay. I'm building a stockpile of extras for future sales when the prices rise up again.

smile Bob smile

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146559 01/06/03 10:21 PM
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 1,075
Larry Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 1,075
It looks like the winning bidder was a speculator, as they have been resold individually. Looking at their previous auctions, buying and selling, and feedback, I didn't see any lighthouses.

Completed Auctions for "speodi"

$1815 plus shipping turned into this:

Cheryl Spencer Collins: 6 listed, 6 sold, $102.03, $17.00 average

Collectible American: 12 listed, 5 sold, $28.00, $5.60 average

Glorious Lighthouse: 2 listed, 0 sold

Lefton: 12 listed, 12 sold, $147.78, $12.32 average

Scaasis: 42 listed, 25 sold, $247.73, $9.91 average

Spoontiques: 2 listed, 0 sold

Thomas Kinkade: 4 listed, 4 sold, $73.00, $18.25 average

Harbour Lights Little Lights: 15 listed, 15 sold, $107.53, $7.17 average

Harbour Lights GLOW: 18 listed, 18 sold, $576.82, $32.05 average

Harbour Lights LE, Special, Christmas, etc.: 58 listed, 1 pulled, 57 sold, $2148.46, $37.69 average

Totals: 171 listed, 142 sold, $3431.35, $24.16 average

It looks like they turned a nice profit. Makes me wish I had the foresight to pony-up the two grand. (although I probably would have wanted to keep them all!)

They also did not list these under the normal "Decorative by Brand: Harbour Lights", but under "Decorative by Theme: Lighthouses". I only found them because the Coquille River LE that was up last week was in the same incorrect category. Makes you wonder what they would have gotten in the correct category.

Despite the fact they weren't in the normal category, there was lots of bidding. I did bid on some, but won nothing. I was being cheap, as there wasn't anything I "had to have".

Nice guess on the profit-turn, Saint John!

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146560 01/06/03 10:33 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
Webmaster Offline
Saint
Offline
Saint
Joined: Dec 1969
Posts: 13,047
Quote:
Originally posted by JChidester:
The buyer will make out just fine. My guess is they will net about $1,500-$2,000.
Say who was that psychic who guessed $1,500-$2,000? wink

Paid $1,815 12/2/02. Sold for $3,431 1/6/03

Profit $1,616 or 89% return in one month. An annual rate of return of 1,068% by my figurin' (someone check me on that.)

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146561 01/06/03 10:58 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
pierhead Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
Not in the normal category? I found them just fine by typing "harbour lights" in the search box. confused

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146562 01/11/03 03:15 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 27
N
NJLIGHTS Offline
Junior Member
Offline
Junior Member
N
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 27
$1,616 sounds good but we have to take out the expenses and time involved in processing the Lighthouse for resale. The shipping fee to get the items to the new owner had to be at least $400.00. Much less than the normal $6.00 shipping per lighthouse but still high. How many boxes would be involved?-a lot. The time to unpack, catalog, list on e-bay, take the pictures, move the item to temp storage. 15 Minutes an item? Thats 50 hours. The 5% or more E-Bay fee, thats about $200.00. The monitoring of E-bay for 7 days, the e-mails to answer, ect. More time. After the sale, finding and packing and addressng around 200 boxes. Taking them to the Post Office or UPS-the lines ,ect. Another 50 hours for the sending process.. I may be wrong in my figures, but I think the buyer lost money or made a few cents an hour. Any one got any better numbers?

Re: Ebay 208 lighthouse collection #146563 01/11/03 05:45 PM
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
pierhead Offline
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 401
I guess that depends on what tax bracket your in. Where I'm from, a $1500 profit for a weeks worth of work is good money. Especially when it's on the side. I was one of the people that thought this was a bad move originally. Now I've changed my mind. smile


Forum Statistics
Forums39
Topics16,978
Posts184,640
Members2,579
Most Online10,155
Jan 14th, 2020
Who's Online Now
0 registered members (), 1,414 guests, and 2 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
SafeHarbor, Toots, Bluffhill, phtate, TexLight2022
2579 Registered Users
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.2