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Product History #75851 01/07/03 10:48 PM
Joined: Nov 1998
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hcorey Offline OP
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When I received my latest Lighthouse Legacy, after the first scan through, my attention focused on the Product History insert. I was shocked to see the large number of lighthouses that were retired at the end of 2001 and 2002 AND the dramatic reduction in the stated edition sizes. Example, #231 Esopus Medows. The edition size was reduced from 10,000 to 4,758. What happened to 5,242 lighthouses? Were they never made, or were they destroyed? This is just an example of many such changes. Is this an attempt on the part of HL to revive the secondary market? This does not follow the pattern of retiring lighthouses when orders equaled the stated production size or there was a problem. It looks like they adjusted the edition size to fit how many were sold at the end of 2001 or 2002.

Now on the other side. At the first Reunion each attendee was given the chance to buy 2 New Point Lomas lighthouses. The edition size was stated as 950. One miniature of the same lighthouse was given to each attendee. The edition size was stated as 480. These figures are in the HL Web Sight page 1997 Tables. Now five years later they say the edition size in 950! Where have the unaccounted for 470 miniatures been all this time? What is HL going to do with these miniatures? It sure changes the rarity of this item. Big bucks were paid for these first miniatures by people who did not attend the reunion. I heard that some attendees paid for their trip with what they made from selling both the full size and miniatures. Will there be a big drop in the secondary for the miniatures now that the word is out that the edition is is almost double what was originally stated? Another loss for collectors?

All this sounds like Enron creative accounting to influence the market.

It is getting late and I have to cover up plants. Hard freeze predicted for central FLODIDA.

Harry

Re: Product History #75852 01/07/03 11:25 PM
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WackoPaul Offline
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What you have found is an error in the product history... there are only the amount of mini's that there were attendee's.. My number on my mini is #430 and I was one of the last to register for the reunion in San Diego. I believe the cut off for registration was a couple of months before the event so they knew how many to produce. I bought 4 of the full sized pieces and used them in trade to get some very hard to get HL's.

There is also a product missing from the list and that is the Seven Foot Knoll Dinner mini.. I found out that the HL number on it is HL645. There isn't a number on the label itself on the lighthouse nor the box.. It was the only HL product that I didn't have a HL number for it on my inventory list..


Onward to The Land of the Midnight Sun!
Re: Product History #75853 01/08/03 12:07 AM
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Harry - I noticed those errors in the event piece counts too. I think it also has the wrong number for the Providence Reunion pieces too. But I don't have that paper in front of me.

As for the drop in production of the pieces... HL places orders in groups of 1,000 usually with an intial order of about 4,000. It's way to costly to produce 25-30 to fill a few orders from dealers. They never order the full production run unless it's going to be a quick sell out (like the Hillsboro, Fresnels, etc.)

Someday I'll tell the story of why production quantities were ramped up to 9,500 from 5,500.

Re: Product History #75854 01/08/03 04:52 PM
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cclighthousebuff Offline
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John,
That is a story I would be very interested to hear. I have read the various speculations here regarding this decision which range from motives based solely upon financial greed to others simply based upon unsophisticated business projections. So far none of them have appeared to be rational to me. So how about opening Pandora's box for us. cool

Re: Product History #75855 01/10/03 02:47 AM
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Dave H Offline
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FWIW, the numbers for HL 640 (full size REXA Hooper for Baltimore) shows a total of 900, same as for the mini. This number is low, I am sure, since each attendee could purchase a total of 2. Not all purchased 2, or even 1, but I bet there are more than 900.

Dave

Re: Product History #75856 01/10/03 06:32 PM
Joined: Jun 2001
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CAVR Offline
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C'mon now.....

What's this about 900 HL 640's (full size REXA Hooper Strait) ?

Huh, I guess I have a fake!! Dang, I knew it was too good to be true to own one of these GREAT pieces! My HL 640 is number 1004

As far as I'm concerned, I don't think any to the figures for the Baltimore Reunion stuff is accurate. Heck I have found many errors in comparing the recent HL product list with what I have on file.

OK, somebody spill the beans now...... it has been over a year since the reunion. smile


-Christopher
"CAVR"
Re: Product History #75857 01/10/03 06:43 PM
Joined: Dec 1969
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WackoPaul Offline
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I think someone mistakenly just put down the number of attendees at each Reunion as the number of issued Reunion lighthouses....


Onward to The Land of the Midnight Sun!

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