So far this is mostly John's old site with a new URL. I'd like to see some other members of the Harbour Lights family provide some input. Perhaps a column (weekly, daily, monthly?) from Bill, or Nancy, or Kim, or even from Maureen. If it was written in MS Word, John could convert it to HTML easily. And since Bill doesn't seem to have a fondness for computers, he could write it out and have someone else to type it up in Word.

I'd also like to see some information that could only come from the company. Like the planned ship date of the next few lighthouses. If they end up moving the date back, change the web page.

As for some of my other ideas, John seems to have already thought of most of those.

Good ideas, all, Jeff. Expect to see some words from Bill, Nancy & Kim in the next few months.

As for the planned ship dates, HL wants to keep those a bit general, having learned a lesson or two last year when several items were delayed months. Keep in mind, the items are made in the Orient, packed into containers, loaded aboard ships, take a week or more to arrive, are offloaded onto trucks and driven to the warehouse. The first order is typically 3,000 - 4,000 (some like the Christmas piece the full order is shipped at once). After this journey of several weeks from Orient to El Cajon, they break down the container, sort the boxes by serial number and then inspect the shipment.

At this point, if there is a problem with the production quality, the whole shipment might be rejected and production must begin again back in the Orient.

So while HL knows which items are being produced at any given time in the Orient, knowing exactly when they will be ready to ship to dealers isn't as easy to predict.

As an item is beginning to ship, we'll post it here within a day or two.

Some collectors (myself included) like to know how long an item was on the market before it retired. In the past we've worked with the introduction date and the retired date. The Introduction date may have been the date the item was announced and hte Retired date has always been the date the last of the edition was sold out.

More important for us is how long an item was available to purchase. That starts when an item first ships to dealers and ends when the last of the run is produced and shipped to a dealer. (First shipped to last shipped).

The Retirement Date does not necessarily reflect when the last item in the edition was shipped. Some quick retirements had pieces shipping months later.

Harbour Lights, at the request of collectors, has begun keeping track of the first shipment and last shipment dates and those dates will be posted here.

You can see an example of this information in the Table of 1998 Introductions in the Catalog section.

John

www.HarbourLights.com/catalog/1998/1998_table.htm

While I don't have a problem with Harbor Lights keeping shipping dates general, there should be a provision for "don't hold your breath." I.e., if something is delayed, there should be a place on this site to let us know. E.g.; what is the status of Keepers and Friends.