I have found reading all these replies quite interesting. I'm new to alot of this internet "stuff" and fairly new to Harbour Lights collecting. My wife saw Cape Henry advertised in one of her collector magazines in early '97 and thought it would make a nice anniversary gift as that is the first lighthouse we had visited together. In her search for it (no one in our area had gotten delivery of it yet) she came across a small gift shop that was discontinuing carrying HL. They offered my wife a "really good deal" on any pieces that she may need for her collection. When my wife explained that she didn't have a collection and why she had inquired about Cape Henry, the dealer offered to get her collection off to a good start. To make a long story short my wife ended up purchasing 32 HL pieces at approximately 1/3 the issue cost. I continue to get these as birthday, Christmas, and any other occasion that we can justify a gift. I never know which one she will give me next. As we have learned more and more about HL thanks to soo many helpful people we have come to realize that her purchase was even more valuable than we first thought. Not only monitarily but HL is now an "our" collection and a family venture as well. There were duplicate pieces from that original gift shop which my brother purchased for his wife. We now do the"lighthouse thing" together and inform each other of any discoveries. My job involves travel and I always search out any dealers in the areas I travel. Have been able to purchase several for us as well as my brother. We now have about 95 lighthouses with 89 of them being LEs. Of these, we have all the Society pieces and except for the very first one, all the event and Christmas pieces. Last year we expanded the collection to include the ornaments and light ships and now have all but the first set of ornaments and have all the light ships from Anchor Bay. We joined the collector's society that same year (97) and have enjoyed meeting Bill and Nancy and email communication with Kim. Absolutely delightful people. We search for bargains and have found many good and reasonable prices through the internet and this site. Unfortunately my budget has not allowed me to take advantage of everything that I have found. I feel that we have just scratched the surface on the enjoyment and increased interest that this hobby and the people involved with it have brought us. We now plan vacations around visiting lighthouses. We try to get every lighthouse that we've visited, then ones that strike our fancy, ones we think will be more valuable someday, and then really any good deal that we come across. We do try to get the lowest numbers but that isn't necessarily a priority.
We look forward to meeting more of you collectors out there in the future.

[This message has been edited by BobNShirl (edited 04-16-99).]