In the move of inventory from El Cajon to West Kennebunk and combining the stock already owned by Lighthouse Marketing, quite a few retired pieces are being made available.

They range from Cape Blanco to Assateague (mold 1) to some retired Christmas items.

Inventory is limited, but all will be sold at retail.

Check out the listing through www.HarbourLights.com. Have your favorite dealer contact their rep directly to obtain the pieces for you. Don't call Harbour Lights. Reps were notified of this list today; dealers may not know about them yet, but they can order through their Reps.

Thanks for the info.

This is cool, I just emailed my dealer to see if he can score an Assateague (mold 1)

Wpould have to say the winners in this group are Assateague and Big Bay.

Mike

An update from Kathy today:

These items are now SOLD OUT:

HL156 Point Arena, CA
HL162 Brant Point, MA
HL177 Alcatraz, CA
HL178 Mukilteo, WA
HL202 Gray’s Harbor, WA
HL237 South Bass Island, OH
HL257 Eldred Rock, AK
HL627 Statue of Liberty, NY
HL654 Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse Hannibal
HL717 Stratford Point, CT

Some of the items missing are surprising . . .

Big Bay is also sold out at this time.

What is amazing is the fact that Alcatraz and Statue of Liberty are sold out so fast and I have been trying to sell those 2 pieces (Alcatraz-$60 and SOL-$75) for the last year and haven't had an inquiry. Must be non-Forum members are buying instead of members.

Dave,

There might have only been one or two of those quickly disappering items. I'm hoping my dealer calls fast enough with my wish list.

Dan

Great theory John, but we haven't had a rep for a number of years! Of course, we don't have any dealers left either, so I guess it doesn't matter much.

My understanding was that to be on the original list there had to be 6 or more of that item.

If the reps are doing their jobs, they may have made a call to dealers nearby these lighthouses who grabbed up the last.

I remember visiting Rollerville Junction a few miles from Point Arena. HL called the store when the piece was going to be retired early and asked the couple who owned the store if they wanted to purchase any more. The husband took the call and ordered 2; the wife was very upset he didn't order more.

Jim, I understand your situation. Look for the rep network to be built back up again. New blood in some cases, renewed drive among those who remain.

Dan, the surprise is that there were apparently so many of the Assateague and Big Bay and Point Arena that they didn't make the first batch of sold-outs. At least Point Arena is now sold out. Many of the others can still be found on dealer's shelves. Along with these 3, the SoL is probably the hardest to find. Round Island, MI is kind of surprising - figured it would go quick with the interest in the Great Lakes this past year.

More added to SOLD OUT list:

HB901 Fort Washington Bell Tower, MD
HL109 Cape Blanco, OR
HL160 Cape Meares, OR
HL204 Yaquina Bay, OR
HL700 Big Bay, MI

That Yacht Kim without the crew is pretty rare. I think the count on the number released to dealers was only 13.

My dealer, the Bronze Lady, got me my Assateague(I was born in Virginia). It will be a week to 10 days.

Terry, at the Bronze Lady, must have had a busy day. He got me an Assateague and a Big Bay. Still waiting to hear back from him about a Yacht Kim without the crew. I got the same timing Eric, "a week to 10 days".

Thanks for the "heads up" John.

I guess that shows their are plenty of collectors out there that are not in the "connected collector" group here at the CF. Hopefully, they will somehow learn of the CF Exclusive, Erie Land Light, and purchase one before they are all gone. That would lead to an increase in secondary market pricing for those who have purchased two with the intent of selling one at a later date.

Bob

So you're the one. You got the last Big Bay. Congratulations.

I just called hoping for another one.

It will be interesting to see if anyone gets some low #s?

Obviously we brought this inventory to the attention of Sales Reps and dealers. While we see a lot of these lighthouses relatively common because of this forum and ebay, many collectors out there do not use the computer and totally rely on their dealers.
Once announced I think most forum users thought they were racing only among themselves over the inventory. But since we had to get dealers and reps involved, they took over.

If you were a dealer won’t you want to purchase a few of the long retired Lighthouses for your displays. It would make a great advertisement to your customers. Picture the collector’s faces when they walk in their dealers door and see a Big Bay. Even the more common ones like Gray's Harbour and Yaquina Bay have been long retired and if someone is looking for one, it would be hard to find without a computer.

These are not secondary market items; these are brand new from HL.
I have to wonder do some of them have low numbers?
Since some are extras, do they even have numbers?

Makes you wonder how many HL collectors, of the faithful variety, there may be in this world.

As CF members, our span of collecting attention revolves around the CF. We check it often and discusss our collecting habits amongst our fellow CF members.

This is a distinct advantage. Our monicker of "connected collector" is just that. I feel we have a definite advantage over non-connected collectors as far as buying and selling HL's. We have an advantage over non-connected collectors when it comes to hunting down rare pieces.

On the other hand, collectors who don't have computer access and wouldn't recognize eBay from dBay or cBay. They probably feel comfortable in buying at retail and also feel their collection is worth every dime they paid for it, and that can be a nice feeling in this day and age of collecting.

Just imagine how good it felt to find some of those very rare pieces, just given up by Harbour Lights, at retail at your dealer. Just imagine the old "thrill of the hunt" running through your veins again. I'm sure each and every one of us have experienced that feeling more than once when hunting down valuable HL's.

"Those were the days, my friends, we thought they would never end..."

Bob

Still a few glitches to get worked out. My dealer called in on Thursday morning to order an Assateague and a Big Bay for me. She understood both orders were accepted and would be shipped. She just called - the Assateague is in but Big Bay is sold out. Interesting in that at the 2 PM posting BB was not listed as sold out yet I didn't get one even though ordered before mid-morning . . . . Oh well. I do appreciate the opportunity to obtain a mold 1 Assateague, and I'm really surprised it has not been listed as sold out.

Well, I received a "Rock of Ages" on Saturday and it was #3022.

Had a more lengthy conversation with my dealer and found out where the problem was with my order: the problem was the very weakest link in the current system, the rep firm. After spending most of the day trying to contact what turned out to be a no-longer-employed rep (don't you think the rep firm might have provided this info to HL?) my dealer finally reached the main people at the rep firm. As you could expect, the rep firm claimed absolutely no knowledge and wanted to know how my dealer was aware of the sale. After 20 questions the rep finally agreed to place the order. By the time the rep got around to placing the order the Big Bay was sold out.

I think this is the first area where you will see changes under Don's leadership. There is a new marketing person in place, one who has plenty of experience in the area. Improving the rep network and the service it provides will be a priority, I believe. This is one thing that will impact all of us and our dealers. Don't get me wrong, there are some great reps out there. However, there are way too many (such as the firm covering my area) that does little to help dealers other than take a profit off their sales.

In my 9 years of collecting HL’s I have heard a lot of stories about bad Reps. Yes I agree with Dave the Existing system that harbour Lights had with Reps is bad and need to be changed. Frankly I could never understand why harbour Lights let many of the Reps get away with what they did.

As Dave said there are some good reps out there but there are just too many bad ones.

On LI, I never saw anyone from Harbour Lights without a Rep at a store. I know Bill use to go to many dealers with the Rep unannounced when he was in the area. But I agree with how unreliable they may be as I'm still waiting for a photo one took last June. Stores order directly through HL so I don't know how using the Reps to get the recent SPECIALS helped us (but it did test the Rep system).

The Bronze Lady called today and I picked up my Assateague and got number 357. I am happy.