New In Box Maglite Find and TV 5D Light

This one is a pretty interesting story I thought I'd share from a find I had a while back and one of the fun experiences I've had collecting Maglites. My dad and I have collected other antiques as well as classic trucks and guns for a long time. Over time we've built up a pretty good network and frequent estate sales, flea markets, garage sales, you name it! A few months ago we got a call from a seller who was liquidating a police equipment store that closed in the 80s in Virginia. The entire store was packed away into a storage locker until the owner passed away.

There were several Maglites in the storage locker. Most of the lights were 1990 transitional models. They are the ones in the 5 hang packs with the horizon logos below. These are rare when new in box but not super desirable among collectors. The real gem of those is the 5C. The 5 and 6Cs were discontinued in 2003 and are very rare because they were so unpopular when new. They are pretty well sought after now and I've detailed them here. The other two lights are a display box 2D from 1988 and a white display box 2C from 1984. The 1984 light has the old rounded style Maglite logo. Lights in this package are next to impossible to find new in box because of their age. The white cardboard display boxes are super durable though and very heavy.

Another interesting note on these packages is the statement on the back that Maglite has a trademark on the circumferential inscription around the bezel as shown below. This means no one else is allowed to print words around the bezel of a flashlight. This trademark was applied for in 1988 and granted in 1993. During that time Maglite sent several cease and desist letters to other manufacturers using this design. Streamlight and Brinkmann were 2 notable examples. Brinkmann made an almost identical Mini Maglite, often referred to as a "lawsuit light" and was subject to huge penalty's in the mid 80s that almost put them out of business. Streamlight used a similar focus system on D cell lights and a laser etching on the bezel of their Excaliber line that said Spot >>> <<< Flood in white lettering to denote which way to turn the head of the light. I've done a small write up on these lights on my other flashlight blog which can be found here. It should be noted that as far as I can tell Maglite was the first flashlight to use words printed around the bezel and I would certainly say that is a trademark of a Maglite flashlight and could easily confuse consumers looking for a light.

It's also interesting to note that the price on the 2C is $22 as shown below. If you lookup a 2C on Amazon as of the posting date you'll see the price is still only $22. To me this is pretty amazing because how many other things can you think of that have stayed the same price since 1984. Maglite has a long history of not raising prices on their lights and instead finding manufacturing efficiencies. I've covered some of this at the end of this post.

I didn't need doubles of the 5Ds especially considering they weren't that rare. I almost never sell lights but I love to trade. One of these lights I traded to another collector and the second I sold to a Prop Master working on the AMC TV series Halt and Catch Fire. I did a short post about that light along with some stills from the scene.

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