The general opinion of the hardline collectors is coming across. This piece does not belong as a Harbour Lights Limited Edition, per se.

But there's a small undercurrent that doesn't seem to be opposed to the production of sculptures like this by Harbour Lights as a company. And the idea of a separate series of this could be a whole other business idea that could expand beyond this one piece - a whole collection of "Fantasy Lights," whimsical lighthouse sculptures in the Harbour Lights tradition.

There's a market for those types of things, and there's a market for lighthouses. Harbour Lights is already known for quality. Why not take advantage of that reputation and expand the business offerings to a whole new collection that crosses over the fantasy realm with the lighthouse realm.

As I said above, whether or not you like it on premise, one must agree that this is a very nice sculpture for its market. But its market is not us. It IS, however, a market that could be marketed to great effect.

If this piece was created to draw in new collectors, then those collectors need to be retained in the Harbour Lights brand. And they may not be drawn to the “traditional” limited edition line. So to retain this new, VERY valuable collector base, HL needs to continue marketing to and creating pieces for this fantasy/lighthouse crossover category.

So, my opinion? This piece is falling flat with the purist, traditionalist core collector group here. The biggest thing they’re angry about is that this non-traditional piece is being given an exclusive HL number. If I were in charge, I’d dump that number NOW and move it into the first piece for a whole new collection, one of fantasy crossover lights. If there’s a whole other collection, akin more to an LLOM or SkyBound, the purist collector will look at it completely differently.