Lanyard Ring End Caps

Summary: Lanyard ring end caps used to be a standard option on most flashlights. Maglite used to produce them for their non-letter serial D cells. They are now discontinued but can still be found as New Old Stock NOS.

Mag Instrument used to produce some interesting accessories for their lights too. One rare accessory is the lanyard ring end cap, also known as a D-ring end cap. This end cap was an option offered on a lot of early professional lights like Kel-Lites for police use. As these lights started to fade from police use in favor of smaller, lighter lights that were easier for officers to carry so did this option. Lanyards are still popular with outdoorsmen and hikers but most hikers will find a Maglite too heavy for most treks. I have a few lanyard ring end cap Kel-Lites that I've covered on my other blog.

These end caps are Mag Instrument part number 108-000-009 and were discontinued in the mid to late 90s. They were never heavily promoted by Mag Instrument and as far as I can tell they were only available for order from the parts department or service centers. They never came standard on any light. They also weren't advertised well because I've never seen them in any Maglite literature. They only fit D cell non-letter serial lights and were only made in black. They will not fit the 1992+ Maglites with a letter in the serial and the panther logo.

I got these with the NIB (new in box) light find from a closed down police supply shop. As of this post date these end caps can still be found as NOS (new old stock) from some online retailers. The cost is about $20 which is almost as expensive as an entire incandescent Maglite. I imagine that's part of the reason why they didn't sell too well. Also, the only lights they fit are from before 1992 so I don't think too many people are rushing out to buy these. The end cap comes with a spring and bulb holder. These are both identical to the spring and bulb holder for a standard end cap. It appears that at least for a little while they were also finished in silver. Other than that I haven't seen any other finishes.

I tried these end caps on a number of different size lights and they only seem to work well with the 2D. The light is small enough where you don't need a super long lanyard and if dropped it won't fall to the ground before the lanyard catches. The end cap also works well for hanging the light on a wall but make sure you have a pretty sturdy hook if you're hanging a larger cell light.

For those interested I made the lanyard myself. It's a fun project and I have these on my Surefires that I use for hiking as well. The instructions can be found at: http://stormdrane.blogspot.com/2011/05/adjustable-paracord-wrist-lanyard.html The paracord is very inexpensive so there's no need to spend $20 on a fancy lanyard when you can make your own for $1.

The light is the same one from the thread I did about the best mods for vintage lights. This was one of the NIB (new in box) 2Ds I found recently and it's my favorite Maglite. There isn't much of a need for lights larger than 2 cell since LEDs came out. I love collecting the large lights but I stopped using them years ago. New LEDs have awesome run times. I can get 4+ hours out of this light and it's 600 lumens to boot. Sure some incans will run longer but most won't touch 100 lumens so they're not super bright. I still use incans here and there but for work I'm all LED. Anyway, here's another pic of the business end for good measure with the super high quality Malkoff LED drop in.

As always I'm looking to buy Vari-Beams and Vintage/Rare Mags. Please let me know if you have any, top dollar paid.