Special Order Colors and Panther Maglite Colors

Maglite has produced a seemingly endless variety of finishes on their lights. Full size D and C cell lights have less variety than the smaller lights like the Mini Maglite and Solitaire. One of the reasons for the large number of finishes is that Maglite will make special runs of lights for orders of around 10,000 units or more. This type of order is far less expensive when done on the smaller lights which contributes to their larger variety.

This post will only cover special order finishes on Panther (Letter Serial) Incandescent D cells. I've covered finishes on "Non-Letter" Serials in an earlier post. Finishes on the C cells were even rarer and I've never been able to put together a full list. I've only ever seen Lime Green 2Cs done as special orders in the C cells and they are extremely rare. It's likely due to the C cells being such slow sellers. All special orders were done after 1996 because I've never seen any lights with markings as identified on my Quick Dating Guide. I've also never seen any 5D or 6D special order lights. This is usually because they're slow sellers when compared to other D cells. 4Ds are especially rare in special order finishes but they do exist as I'll detail below.

One piece of information I'm missing is who placed these special orders. I have heard they were from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot. It would make sense because all 3 of these retailers were some of the largest Maglite vendors in the late 1990s and early 2000s during Maglite's heyday. Below is a list of standard finishes and light sizes produced in each of these finishes.

Standard
Black
Color Code 01 (BLACK)
2D, 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D

Red
Color Code 03 (RED)
2D, 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D

Blue
Color Code 11, GU, DZ (BLUE)
2D, 3D, 4D

Silver
Color Code 10
2D, 3D, 4D (Discontinued)

Gray
Color Code 09 (GRAY)
2D, 3D, 4D (Discontinued)

Dark Green (Discontinued in 2018)
Color Code 39
2D, 3D

Purple (Discontinued in 2018)
Color Code 98
2D, 3D

Woodland Camo (Discontinued in 2018)
Color Code 02
3D

UCP Camo (Digital Camo)
Color Code MR
3D (Discontinued)

Below is a list of special order finishes and light sizes produced in each of these finishes.

Special Order
Lime Green
Color Code CZ (LM GRN)
2D, 3D

Jade (Target Special Order)
Color Code IS (JADE)
2D, 3D, 4D

Orange (Sometimes also called Amber, Home Depot Special Order)
Color Code AU (ORANGE)
3D

Midnight Blue
Color Code FD
2D, 3D, 4D

Copper / Bronze (Looks exactly like a new copper penny)
Color Code JY (COPPER)
2D, 3D, 4D

Shimmer Blue (A light Blue)
Color Code DK (BLUE SH)
2D, 3D

Pewter (A lighter Copper)
Color Code 94 (PEWTER)
2D, 3D

Matte (Stealth) Black (From Australia, Big W Special Order)
Color Code 17 (AST)
3D

Special Promotion
Gold
Color Code 04
2D, 3D?

I have most of the lights in the Special Order finishes in some of the sizes. I was originally looking for the 4Ds as they are much tougher to find. These lights were mainly produced in the late 90s and early 2000s in small numbers and there aren't many left. Jade, Copper, and Midnight Blue do show up occasionally but almost never in 4Ds. Lime Green, Orange, and Matte (Stealth) Black are extremely difficult to find.

Gold finishes are done very sparingly as I've detailed in a prior post. There was a gold 2D produced to commemorate the introduction of the updated, Panther style, Maglites. I have one and it's in the link above with the rest of my gold lights. They are super rare and I don't think Maglite intended them to be a standard or special finish rather a one off.

Shown below is a photo of all of the special order finishes. The ones below from left to right and top to bottom are a 2D Lime Green, 2D Pewter, 2D Shimmer Blue. 3D Matte (Stealth) Black, 3D Orange, 3D Jade, 4D Copper, and a 4D Midnight Blue. Some of these lights I've only paid $20 or so for. I doubt many people know how rare they are so they can usually be had on the cheap when they show up on the large auction site. Orange, Lime Green, and Matte Black though hardly ever show up for sale and usually command high prices.

The Orange 3D is a ~24,000,000 serial, the Midnight Blue 4D is a ~10,000,000 serial, the Pewter 2D is a ~15,000,000 serial, the Copper 4D is an ~11,000,000 serial, the Jade 4D is a ~9,000,000 serial, and the Lime Green 2D is a 12,000,000 serial. All are stamped "Patented Made in U.S.A." opposite the serial and have an R with a circle after the Panther logo which puts them after 1996 but before 2003 as I've detailed in my D Cell Quick Dating Guide. The Shimmer Blue 2D is a ~25,000,000 serial and is stamped "Patented in U.S.A." so it is from between 2003 and 2009. The Matte Black 3D is a ~47,000,000 and has no patent stamping so it is from 2009 to 2017.

The special order lights can be tough to tell apart in photos from other colors. I've posted some photos of the green lights below for comparison. Lime Green is on the left and top followed by standard (Dark) Green and Jade. I've also included a photo below of some of the other Lime Green lights I own as well.

Shown below from left to right are Silver, Gray, Pewter and Copper/Bronze. Only the Copper/Bronze and Pewter are special order finishes but the Silver and Gray are often confused for Copper/Bronze and Pewter. I've never been able to differentiate Copper and Bronze so I think they may be the same finish. I've also never seen separate color codes for them. I am able to confirm Pewter because I have a NIB one and the serial is very close to the loose one and they are identical colors. This series of lights is the most disputed and confused one but I am 100% confident in the colors I've identified.

Shown below are the blue lights too. I have 2 Shimmer Blues and they are both on the right/bottom followed by standard Blue and Midnight Blue on top.

I think it's also interesting that the shimmer blue is the same color as Maglite's old standard blue from before 1992. In the bottom picture you can see a 1980 3D compared to a Vari-Beam and my 2D shimmer blue. The colors all match exactly. The old blue lights were much lighter than the current blue Maglite offers.

Matte (Stealth) Black is one of the newer special order finishes I've come across. I believe there was a small batch of these done in 2009 or so when the ML300LX lights made their debut because the finish is identical and the color code is the same. I've only seen a handful and all of them that I've seen came from Big W, a chain store similar to Walmart, in Australia. Shown below is a comparison of my Stealth 3D and AA Mini Maglite to standard Black 3D and AA Mini Maglite have a gloss finish. I also included a shot with a cool Maglite Security Officer patch that was given to me by another collector. I think it goes well with the stealth motif.

Maglites, especially full size D and C cell models, are not as popular as they once were. Accordingly, it is doubtful many special order finishes will be produced again. The heyday for Maglite's sales department really was in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they were moving 5,000,000 units of some models per year. Due to the introduction of very inexpensive, imported, small LED lights Maglite's sales of full size lights have significantly slowed. In recent years they have started to discontinue certain incan finishes and at some point I imagine they'll discontinue all but a few incan models and significantly reduce their D and C cell offerings. I could see C cells being phased out all together. These are pretty rare lights at a really decent price point which makes them nice for a future collectible.

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