I started collecting in August 1997. I had always been interested architectural miniatures. I thought about collecting Lilliput Lane for a time. But they get to be a little on the pricey side. There is one LL sculpture that has an entire English village, including a lighthouse on it. But it runs around $1,400. For one! So I came upon a display of Harbour Lights lighthouses in a Hallmark shop in Michigan City, IN. I liked the way they looked and they were certainly reasonably priced. I thought "What the heck, maybe I'll buy a couple." I bought Grosse Point, IL and Currituck, NC.

I have been buying and selling Hallmark ornaments for a while and a few weeks later I came upon another display. I had seen Navesink in a magazine ad and thought it looked pretty impressive. It was even more so in person. And this store had one. I was about to walk out without it because $245 seemed like a lot at the time. But my wife said "If you want it, go ahead and get it. We can certainly afford it." (She has a corrupting influence on me that way. :-) )

So I bought it. And since part of my job involves working with the internet, I got up on the web and looked to see if there were any web sites about Harbour Lights. After wading through the store web sites, I came upon two - one run by Mike Richards, and the precursor to this site, Lighthousekeepers.com. Both sites had good advice for new collectors and I printed out many pages of information. I studied what I had printed out in order to devise a strategy. (I guess I was hooked.) I would buy as many retired ones as I could at retail and then start looking for the older and newer ones. I was able to get a surprising number of them at retail. It takes a lot of effort, but the savings is worth it. I called HL and got a dealer list. (You can print it out from this web site now.) I went to all of the dealers in this area. Then I started going to other dealers who were anywhere near an area I was at. I know people say you can call the numbers from the dealer list, but I've found that there are a lot of people who don't have the time to read off a list of every lighthouse they have in stock. I think you have better luck visiting the dealers yourself.

And after 13 months of collecting, I have every lighthouse, including major variations, except for Nauset Beach, Ocracoke, Key West, Split Rock, MI, and the two Cape Hatterases. I will have all of them before the year is out except for the elusive Cape Hatteras version one. Those don't come up for sale too often. And when they do, they cost as much as a used car.

So if you want some advice, buy the Greenbook. Buy the Collectors' Value Guide. Look at every page of this web site. Look at every page of Mike's web site. Join the Collector's Society. Buy Jim Rutherford's Harbour Lights Lighthouse Survival Guide (HLSG@aol.com). Study all of this material. Decide how much you can afford to spend. Then go for it!