TIPS FOR KEEPING THE COLLECTING DESIRE

We have heard a lot of negative feedback lately on collecting burn-out.
There are many collectors out there that still “keep the flame”. I have three questions:

1.What tips can you collectors give fellow collectors to help them keep their COLLECTING DESIRE.


2.Those that have collecting burn-out what can be done to help?


3.What can us Forum monitors do to help?

Great Topic, Daniel...

Stop thinking of your collection as an 'investment' that is losing value or has lost value. It's a collection. They are lighthouses. You probably like lighthouses still. Harbour Lights have been and are still the finest reproductions of lighthouses so you own the best.

Go visit real lighthouses. Get back in the spirit of remembering this important era in our country's history and the men and women who 'kept the flame' and saved many lives. Remember the sacrifices of living a lonely life and the need to be self-sufficient on a lonely outpost with the only access by water. Remember this when you look at the individual lighthouses in your collection.

Put some of your Harbour Lights away (you probably already have some in storage). Focus on fewer pieces, read up on the history of the lights in your viewable collection.

Develop a 10-15 minute talk you could give about lighthouses in your locale. Volunteer to present your talk at local elementary and middle schools and to service clubs and church groups. Use your own photographs to illustrate your talk. And take along 2-3 Harbour Lights. I bet you'll create several new collectors!

Clubs - you can do the same - create a 'speaker list' and offer to help create school curriculum on lighthouses in your area.

Go stay at a lighthouse. Be s docent at a lighthouse. Volunteer to paint, or scrape, volunteer to work in the gift shop, or tend the grounds at a lighthouse or research its history.

If you've lost interest in Harbour Lights, donate individual pieces to schools or nursing homes or to the non-profit that is working to maintain that lighthouse or to the local museum in the area of the lighthouse. Take the tax deduction.

Be selective in which Harbour Lights you buy. If the original 17 interest you, watch for good buys on ebay, buy the variations - California, Canada, mold changes. Narrow your collecting focus. But don't give it up.

Meet with other collectors. Join a club, start a club, go on a lighthouse trip with a club. Don't just join a LOCAL club, join one in another region of the country, too. Get on their mailing list and go to one event each year.

Tell Harbour Lights which lighthouses to make next, tell them you want more regionals. Tell them you'll organize a regional event if they'll come. (Wouldn't it be fun to meet in Chicago again? Or move it up the coast to Milwaukee? Or Holland?)

Go to a store event when there is one in your state or the one next door. Meet Bill, talk with Bill. Tell him how you feel about lighthouses and Harbour Lights.

Take a couple of your Harbour Lights to your workplace. Let people ask you about them and respond with information about the REAL lights they represent. Be prepared; know the history.

Arrange an exhibition of 20-50 pieces in your collection at the local museum, local school, or city hall. Write up information about the real lighthouses and the Harbour Lights replicas.

Give a friend a Harbour Lights or a Little Light. Or a thumbnail. I passed out thumbnails to just a few people who work at our church. They love them!


Thanks, Daniel. Your question got me regenerated. I think I'll go meet with a few hundred similar-thinking collectors and lighthouse enthusiasts later this month.

Can't think of anything to add. Very good John!

Sean

Great topic Daniel!!! Great thoughts John!!!!
My suggestion: Get a child or several interested!! There parents too!
Since I purchased Avery Point and a brick for each of my grandchildren the 2 who are old enough to recognize LH's ask me about the ones in my collection each time they visit. They have also been bugging their parents about seeing the LH "grampa bought". They also ask when I'll take them to a LH. Mom and dad also ask about visiting lights now.
It's a start!!!
Rick

Just this year I have gotten more interested in Lost Lights. Maybe you too can start a new speciality.

Great job John! You have given someone who is suffering burnout plenty of new avenues to follow. I use several of your suggestions and wonder how anyone could be burned out on lighthouses or collecting. I keep my interest up by collecting the variations and all the different models, of a particular light, ie. LE, LLOM and GLOWS. I then display them in a setting and some of these make very interesting groupings.
I have completed my LE collection and have used this method to keep up my interest. I think it's great fun to shop for and purchase an older retired light with a lighting rod or a Castle studio box. If you take it slow and easy you can afford it. The real fun is in the research and then the search.
To all collectors, take a deep breath, relax and renew your interest, in something that has given you great pleasure in the past.
John had it right. "they are only lighthouses and they are a collection."
Bill B

I have a few to add or add too.

1. Don’t try to complete your collection overnight. I have seen it over and over on ebay. Especially with the early LE, a collector will outbid everyone to hurry up and complete his collection. With-in a year or two there is nothing left to collect. He/she gets burned out from collecting and quits collecting all together. Pace yourself.

2. Don’t blame anyone for your collecting problems. Many collectors have quit collecting because the excitement is gone. Many blame ebay, Harbour lights and the economy. There is no one to blame it is just the changing times. Collecting is fun and rewarding. In the hay day we all had a extra to our collecting pleasure, our collections were valuable and very easy to turn into cash. The good old days are gone. Or at least they are gone in the way we knew it. We are now into a new exciting collecting era. We have something now that we didn’t have 10 years ago and that is the computer and all the harbour lights deals just at our fingertips. Last year many of our collectors had fantastic finds at bargain prices. Here is a small list of great buys.

1. Skip jack Nancy-open edition –5 made- $39

2.California made Artist proof Umphra $26

3. California made Artist proof boston harbor $101

4.AP Keywest $170

5. California made AP castlehill $170

6. Rare Montauk (first glow 10-12made) $110

7. Old field point Christmas Artist
Proof. 10 to 12 made $300

8. St Augustine $36

This year

1. Canadian made Cape Hatteras with white box $150

2. Borrows island with rod and box $127

3. Minots ledge- green water $100

4. London ledge- never displayed $35

The fun of collecting is still there. It is just done differently now.