After a lighthouse is sculpted in wax, either the artist or a different person will make a mold and do two castings from that mold. An origination painter then paints the two pieces identically.

These "paint samples" usually do not have any bottom felt. And the ones I have seen have had the words "paint sample" hand-written on the bottom of them.

One of these two is sent to the factory and the other is retained by Harbour Lights.

The factory then paints up a few pieces following the one paint sample they were sent and ships these samples back to Harbour Lights for approval. They do have the bottom felt. At Harbour Lights, they compare the factory painted samples with the artist painted sample they retained.

If they approve it, they can simply communicate with the factory to proceed or give them instructions on how to change the piece.

If they are approved these early sample become the Artists Proofs shipped out to showrooms. If the changes are relatively minor, the pieces may still be sent out as APs.


In the early years, pieces were ordered, cast and painted in smaller quantities than in the mid 1990s and probably up to the present day. Initial order quantities might have been 2,000 or 3,000.

The Malaysian and Chinese factories were much better with painting consistency than was Castle Studios which used home-based painters.

I do know that some unnumbered pieces are made and these may end up marked as "AP" when they need to generate another one.

In the early years, APs were not numbered. But the showrooms told the Youngers that an unnumbered piece could be more valuable than one marked as "AP" because it could be numbered by the recipient as anything they wanted it to be.

So HL began to mark them as "AP" on the flag.

Up until this year, any rep group that had a showroom would get a set of APs of each release batch from Harbour Lights. If they didn't have a showroom, they didn't get APs. That meant that the number of APs made for each piece was usually about 12 - maybe as high as 15 for peak years when there were more rep groups.

Some pieces such as the Collectors Society pieces and the Event editions (Reunion, Store, Regional) are not chosen by dealers to carry; the company makes what it wants, so they do not need to have APs made for showrooms. Only 3-4 APs may be made of these pieces.

Under Lighthouse Marketing, many fewer pieces are marked "AP". Rep groups will get a regular production piece of the editions for their showrooms and IF a lighthouse is released from their area -- for example Galveston TX for the TX rep group, they will get an AP of that one only.

Kim told me long ago that once the rep has the APs they were free to do whatever they wanted to with them after the introduction period was over.

They may have retained the AP in the showroom until it retired, or until the next batch was released. A few of the reps kept them as their personal collection. Others gave them to a store or event as a drawing prize or auction item.

Typically if there is a modification made on a piece, the APs which are the first ones made by the factory will have the more rare version.

For example, all of the Grand Haven MI LEs sent to reps as APs had the roof painted red. The Old Field Point NY pieces had the original metal tree and way back in the early years, the APs of Split Rock were "MI", later corrected to "MN".

APs are relatively rare and it would be nice to have one in a personal collection, IMO. They generally carry a premium and still should, in my opinion.

The number of APs is in addition to the planned edition size.