OK Mombo - we'll fess up.

We have purchased a number of duplicates (when we got great prices on them) over the years and have made some great trades because we had some extras of the older retired pieces to trade with without disturbing our personal collection.

If you had a little extra money alloted to mad money at the time and came across three #145 Assateagues at 20% off original retail, what would you do?

If we told you what we got in trade for two of the first Barnegat GLOWS, you wouldn't believe me. And the trade came from a major dealer. It was his idea. Are you out there? Do you remember? Actually buying the six GLOWS has ultimately made us quite a bit of money and gotten us some great pieces.

And our trade for the first NPL brought us a secondary value at the time of about $1,400. And that was a trade with another major dealer. We figured he knew what he was doing. He seemed happy and we certainly weren't displeased.

We have also made some fairly decent money from some of the extras on eBay.

Does this diminish our love of our personal collection of HL's, not at all. And it has been great fun seeing some of the new folks who are collectors get some of these older pieces that are harder to find.

This may sound terrible to some of you, but we consider our extras as trading pieces and money makers. The extras are safely tucked away in their boxes and will come out when we feel the time is right. From time to time you will see us on eBay with a few more of the extras we still have. Just look for the Lightkeepers.

We do so love Chinese food also.

[This message has been edited by Michael and Karen Power (edited 06-17-99).]