I like what Bill H. said in Part 1:
I'd be very concerned about keeping supply just a bit on the tight side. My goal would be to have every piece retire in roughly 3 years. Some might take a little longer, some would retire immediately. It would balance out.
I'm now dabbling, trying to make some sense out of the available numbers to see what that would mean for edition size in the current environment.
Personally, I'm still sitting on the fence regarding the early retirements. But given the recent controversy over this,
I must concur with BuyGlass:
I think its better managed in the beginning with a realistic edition size.
I'm not so sure that the whole problem is in the edition size, though:
10,000/9,500 seems to large for now and 5,500 is to small.
All else being equal, this may be true, but let's not forget the
number of models that are available at any given time. I think that the notion of "supply" must include this as well as edition size.
Taking a quick look at the data, the 5,500 edition pieces from Ponce de Leon through Tawas have a median number of days on the market until retirement that is roughly the same as the 9,500 edition pieces from Round Island to Cape Henry. So I think that it is
not a foregone conclusion that a 9,500 edition size is too large in and of itself. (Pre-Southern Belles, 5,500 edition size pieces took much longer to retire than the two groups that I use here for comparison.)
Having said that, my personal preference would be for smaller edition sizes and more releases throughout the year rather than fewer releases with larger edition sizes. Naturally, economics comes into play, and it is in HL's financial interest (all else being equal -- an enormous qualifier!) to make fewer models with larger edition sizes. I can live with either approach, but to keep interest in the line up, the pieces must move off the shelves faster. To me that means fewer total LE lighthouses available.
-Art
