Harbour Lights has stated that the 1998 Christmas lighthouse, Old Field Point NY, will be an edition of 10,000 pieces. Since it was 'allocated' before introduction, it is considered retired (sold out to dealers).

The piece will begin shipping the week of July 27. Shipment will take place in this order, starting with the lowest serial numbers:

1 - Auto ships to dealers with standing orders
2 - Reserved pieces in the order reserved
3 - Allocated remainder of the 10,000.

If you have a standing order with a dealer to automatically receive the same number piece each time, you need to get in touch with that dealer NOW and tell them you expect to receive 'your' number in Old Field Point, regardless of the number you would otherwise receive from your reservation.

If your reserved piece is being sent to a dealer other than the one you receive your 'same number' pieces from, you may want to call HL Monday and ask them to change the shipment to other dealer. This will give your 'auto ship' dealer an extra Old Field Point beyond the ones they may receive on allocation.

Perhaps 4800 of the 10,000 Old Field Points will be distributed on allocation over about 1,900 dealers, so the average will be less than 3; it's possible some dealers will receive none and others will receive more, of course.

Is it just me or is this a flawed distribution system ? Why bother to send in the reservation card if I could have done nothing and still received my regular autoship numbered piece ? Is HL under the impression that Old Field Point will fly off the shelves so fast that some collectors will not get one ? when there are still Christmas pieces from the last 2 years still available in stores with smaller edition sizes. Maybe next year HL could further complicate this by using your membership number to giving preference to lower membership number's first after the autoship are sent out. Or maybe HL should just send out 200 to each state regardless of how many dealers or collectors are in each state to distribute them evenly around the country. If HL's intention is to make the Christmas piece available to as many collectors as possible and cut down on speculators loading up on extra pieces I think they missed the mark on this system because they just gave me an extra piece to buy if I wanted one with my autoship piece in addition to the piece I reserved. I think this should have been distributed either like the society piece ( by redemption ) or just like a normal production piece.

From the sidewalk next to the soapbox near Tim's fog signal building, Mark ( OSHA has informed us that the soapbox is an unsafe platform to stand on considering its age and we will be fined if we use it again )

Stopped at Old Field LH on the way home from work last night. The LH now houses the Village Police. Not real friendly!! Neat little LH. I didn't get a chance to find out when they'll replace their dead tree with an evergreen.

If the technology is not yet available for shipping dead pewter trees, then lets do the next best thing and change the real light to match the sculpture (in the pursuit of accuracy)

Maybe Harbour Lights, along with reunion attendees should pitch in to a fund to replace the old dead tree with a new pristine pine. A nice little bronze HL logo plaque next to the tree would be great for photos!

Maybe Kim could give each person a broken piece of the replaced pewter trees as a token gift for their donation. (hint, hint)

I guess we all could have volunteered time to paint Beavertail cream last year too. Never thought of it then.

---

-RodW
[This message has been edited by Rod Watson (edited 12-02-98).]