I saw an item on ebay that was Cape Lookout #405 GLOW...could not verify that this was an actual piece...is it?

Don't know what it was but somebody bought it! HL405 is Montauk. Cape Lookout hasn't been done as a GLOW.

Cape Lookout was originally released as a GLOW, with an AXXXX edition number and all. Collectors protested because it hadn't yet been released as a LE, and Y&A listened. It was released as a LE to finish the edition.

There has been other discussion on this in the past here. You can find out more by using the search feature. Just set the period to search back to the beginning of time before searching, and you should come up with more on this. BTW, Cape Lookout wasn't the only one!

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-Art

Since this question comes up a lot I thought I would just repost John's post, assisted by Tim on the graph.

In December 1995, a series of Great Lakes lighthouses were introduced as a 'Stamp Set', matching the five lighthouses featured on a set of US postage stamps. Two of these five had already been done as limited editions (Marblehead OH and Split Rock MN) - but these were about to retire.

Harbour Lights decided to make all five of the 'Stamp Series' lighthouses open editions. 

The 1996 introductions then in production would include both open and limited editions -- and some of the open editions were lighthouses that had not been previously issued as limited editions.

Collectors began to complain - "Harbour Lights should not issue any lighthouse as an 'open edition' that had not previously been issued as a retired edition and retired."

The compaints grew and Harbour Lights listened. They anounced that the collectors' demands would become the rule. GLOW open edition lighthouses would only include those items that had been limited editions and retired.

That decision would be retroactive. It would cover the three Stamp Series lighthouses issued in 1995 and the 4 1996 GLOW lighthouses that had already been released, plus 2 that were already in production but not yet shipped (Peggy's Cove and Fire Island - which do NOT have edition sizes on their flags but were never issued with a "4XX" product number.)

The old collectors were happy - but new collectors were confused. They were confused because they were seeing lighthouses without edition sizes on the flags and some with serial numbers that began with letters, and eventually what looked like the same lighthouse with different product numbers.

And they would eventually be confused because Harbour Lights chose to re-use the 400 series product numbers that were originally assigned to the GLOW-turned-limited edition lighthouses.

So 410 (Spectacle Reef) became Cape Neddick GLOW
411 (St. Joseph) became St. Augustine GLOW
405 (Cape Lookout) became Ponce de Leon GLOW
406 (Fire Island) became New London Ledge GLOW
407 (Alcatraz) became Holland GLOW
417 (Mukilteo) became Alcatraz GLOW

The green book shows cape lookout issued as HL 405 2/96 and converted 2/27/96 to HL 175,open editions dated 1996 LEs dated 1995
Bill O'Brien oseabee

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Thanks for reviewing the complicated 400"s issues. I needed that to remember how we got the confused #'s.

thanks again for clearly explaining it for us all.