I had a secondary market request inquiring if I had a HL 139 Barnegat LE. My inventory indicated I had three in stock. The inquiry came from a fellow CF member, so I decided to pull all three from my inventory to see which one would be best for this customer. Here's the picture of the 3 Barnegats together:



It should be very obvious to you that the 2 Barnegats on your right have a light blue water, while the one on the left is a darker blue. The flag#'s reading from left to right are 3767, 1510, and 2187. All three have some flaws. Flag# 3767 has some paint rub off on the shrubs. Flag# 1510 has a microchip right at the base and no original box. Flag# 2187 is in very good-excellent shape for its age but the original box has water damage. There was no water damage to the piece itself leading me to believe the box was damaged while it was empty in storage.

Now that you have a little history on the three pieces, what do you think caused this very obvious paint variation? Some might say a paint fading caused by exposure to the sun. Well how did two of them fade exactly the same? If you're wondering if the water on the one of the left may have been repainted, I saw no evidence of that.

Take a look at the Barnegat in your collection and report back with the color of the water as compared to the three in the picture above. I'm just a little curious if there may have been three different water colors, green, dark blue, and light blue.

Bob

Bob - I think what you have is not a paint variation, but, rather an artist conception of what the blue should be. I have several pieces that I have duplicates of that have varying degrees of blue in the water.

Nope, I agree Bob; I have the same color of Blue on the two Barnegats I have. The one on the left is definately not a repaint. I can't recall ever seeing any with that lighter color. The number range is interesting. If green water is a variation then certainly the lighter blue is as well. You just wonder how many are out there. It's also interesting to note on the righthand lighthouse that the lantern room is painted a little bit differently.

Good point, Sean. I didn't even notice that. My attention was focused on the water color.

I often wonder how the HL painters manage to paint all the models of one light exactly the same. I know there are variations here and there, but for the most part they all look alike (same lighthouse). I can't imagine how difficult it must be to blend a color exactly and paint every piece from an edition size that went from 5,500-10,000 replicas. One would think there would be a lot more paint variations.

I often thought I should pull out more of my duplicates and put them side by side for comparison. I believe I did that with a couple of HL 106's. I may still have the pictures of the paint difference in my files. I find that stuff interesting. Has anyone else with multiples done the same thing?

Bob

What are the countries of origin of these three pieces?

Harbour lights have struggled with the color of the ocean waters, all the way up to 1994.
If you think about it everyone of their early lights in that time period that had water came with a green water variation. Besides the green variations I have noticed the dark blue and powder blue types on the Michigan City, and London ledge. I have also notice two shades of blue on the Big Red but not as prominent. I have noted a #1783 Barnegat on ebay with a lot of white mixed into it to stimulate whitecaps. I have three of the green water Minot Ledge. Two of them have the same solid green color but my double digit one has white capes all over the top with a shinny shellac finish.(Probably need to post a picture).

Rich and I were at a signing at Edgewater Treasures with Kim. Rich mentioned that I had 5 Michigan Cities. She asked me why in the world did I have so many Michigan Cities. I was surprised she would ask such a question, thinking it was obvious. My answer was, because there are so many water variations. Rich then asked Kim why there were so many variations. Her answer which is the main point of this story was. “ Because we just couldn’t get it right.”

It probably wasn’t till 1995 that HL got their water consistent. Even still it wouldn’t surprise me if the Bolivar, Round island, St Joseph, Spectacle Reef, point Arena, & Brant Point didn’t have different shadings of blue, But nothing compared to the Barnegat pictures Bob posted.

Bob
I am glad you brought to our attention the noticeable differences in the Blue water Barnegat.
I am going to start tracking their numbers on ebay.

To add to Daniel's reply, and since talking to Kim in Jacksonville, I have added a light Blue water, dark blue water and green water Michigan City to my collection. I also have a light blue water, dark blue water, dark green water and "teal" green water New London Ledge. I asked Bill about the "teal" color and he said the artist may have felt like painting teal instead of blue that day as it fits in the blue water serial number range. Go figure!

Answer: Made in Malaysia

Bob