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TOWER of LONDON
What really happened!
There has been a lot of speculation as to why the Tower of London retired so quickly last year. It seems that the real story has finally surfaced! Dealers were originally assured that the Tower of London was NOT going to be a "Limited to Year of Production" piece as its predecessor The Signature Series was.
Yet it no sooner hit the shelves in the fall, when it's RETIREMENT was announced in early November. As you may recall, delivery of this piece to the retailers was slow, because heavy rains and flooding had washed out the only road to the factory, making the factory unable to get the finished pieces to the port for shipment to the US. That explains the delays, but what about the surprise retirement? Apparently, when D56 realized that they were going to be delayed getting the pieces to the dealers, they called the factory and told them to "stop production." What they MEANT was to stop making them until the backlog could be shipped out. However, what the plant manager HEARD was "cease production", so he destroyed the molds! When D56 realized what
happened and called their insurance company, they were told "your product, your orders, your agent, your problem!" Due to the high cost of making molds, D56 decided the only economical way out was to retire the piece. Collectors were irate, as were retailers. But that is what caused the Historic Landmark Series to become the "Limited to Year of Production" pieces that we have today.
(Courtesy of Departmental Fifty Sixers "Mental Notes" - Volume 3-Edition 7 - November 1998)
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