C Cell Colors

Summary: C cell colors are very rare because C cells did not sell as well. I do have a few different finishes and they are shown below including one rare special order finish.

C cell colors are pretty rare. As I've detailed in earlier posts C cells have traditionally been fairly slow sellers compared to D cells. As such, Mag Instrument has not put as much effort into marketing of the C cells. This is a bonus for collectors like me because these lights are rarer and tougher to find! I have a handful of C cell finishes and I've seen of heard a couple more so I'll share all of the info I have.

The lights at the left are the earliest C cells, both TM and R bezels from 1982 to 1989. The 2 center lights are transitional lights from 1990 and 1991 and the 3 lights at the far right are Panther bezels from 1992 on as detailed in my C Cell Quick Dating Guide.

I've covered some of these lights before. The early C cells are extremely rare in anything other than black. The silver 3C I think is a prototype light due to its odd end cap. The blue 4C is mentioned on an early Maglite insert and I've covered it under my Personalized Lights post. I've covered the gold 2C too and as with other full sized gold lights it was likely done for a commemoration or special occasion.

The transitional C cells I haven't covered. Both came from large lots of Maglites I purchase either at estate sales, thrift shops, flea markets, Craigslist, Letgo or Flea-Bay. The transitional C cell lights have a laser etched bezel but without the Panther logo and they were produced in 1990 and 1991. Up until I found these lights I thought just a handful of early C cells were produced in some one off colors and then there weren't any C cell colors until Mags became very popular in the late 90s. Anyway, here's a pic of both of those lights. The dark green 3C is in great shape and the blue 3C has been well used.

I'd eventually like to have all of the finishes Mag has offered but for now I have a pretty small collection. So, what colors were C cells manufactured in? Well, I only know of colors on 2Cs, 3Cs and a few early 4Cs. I have seen or heard of the following but please feel free to contact me if you know of any others:

2C
Blue

Silver (1985, 1992+)

Red

Standard (Dark) Green (1990+)

Grey (1992+)

Purple (1992+)
Manufactured in both letter and non-letter serials

Lime Green
Special order finish
Manufactured in non-letter serial only, approximately 1999-2003

Gold
Only a handful manufactured

3C
Blue

Silver (1985, 1992+)

Grey (1992+)

Standard (Dark) Green (1990+)

4C
Blue (TM Bezel 1982 to 1986)


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

1999 Y2K Maglites

Summary: Maglite capitalized on the power outage fears of Y2K by producing a special Y2K model in 1999.

For those of us old enough to remember Y2K, the year 2000, it was an exciting but also frightening time. There was a lot of uncertainty, namely how technology would react. In response to this consumers stocked up on essentials, water, canned food, generators, batteries, and flashlights in advance of the celebrations. I can certainly remember clutching my Maglite as the countdown to 2000 happened. Luckily, we didn't need any of it.

Maglites have been the go to light during natural disasters and power outages for many years. Maglite has made many donations to disaster relief efforts like 9/11. So, it is no surprise that they capitalized on the Y2K fears by promoting and selling Maglite flashlights. Can you blame them? After all it was an entirely man-made fear that looking back seems to be very silly and fun.

Shown below is a very special 3D light they put out for the Y2K celebration. It is one of their first screen printed lights and shows a map of the world that wraps around the light with the year 2000 on one side and on the reverse the "MAG 2000" logo. Very few of these were made and I believe they were done as part of a marketing campaign for the supposed Y2K power outages and sold through regular retailers. If anyone has any of the marketing materials or ads for that campaign I would love to see them. My contact info is at the right.

This light, unlike other full size lights, has no knurling. This was done to aid in the clarity of the screen printing. The screen printing offered many advantages, like the addition of color, which couldn't be obtained with their standard laser etching and was much more durable than die cut decals Mag tried for a while. An AA Mini Maglite was also produced in an identical design scheme but I unfortunately don't have one. I heard they may have been packaged together as a set.

There weren't very many of these lights produced and they are coming up on 20 years old so they are very rare. I haven't seen very many come up for sale but if they did I don't imagine they'd be worth a ton of money like the 7Ds or 7Cs because not a lot of folks know about them. I was lucky enough to find two from a fellow collector and ex Maglite dealer. The serials are 23,205,194 and 23,205,197. They are very close together, only 3 units apart. All of these lights are going to be around 23,205,000 serials. Shown below are both of my Y2K lights with their nearly sequential serials.

I'm always up for trading for lights I don't have or ones I'm really interested in so I'll likely trade one of these away to another collector in the future.

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