Up until this post all of my previous posts have been about classic, incandescent, Maglites. Well I guess some of the first generation LED lights are starting to become classics as well and I've had a few inquiries about an unusual LED light that Maglite produced when they first started selling LED lights, the 3AA Mini Maglite.
Most folks know about the ever popular AA Mini Maglites. They started in 1984 and I did an earlier post about their beginnings and about the differences between the generations. Maglite started selling LED lights around 2003 and I have not covered any of them on my blog. As far as I know there isn't a collector market for any of them except the odd 3AA Mini Maglite. Before I go any further I should post a few pics.
As you can see the lights are quite a bit larger than a 2AA Mini Maglite and you could kind of say that defeats the purpose of the Mini Maglite because it has always been intended to be a compact, portable light. I believe the reason why this was done is because the first generation LED emitters were not very efficient. They required quite a few volts to produce a desirable amount of light and the run times were not very long. Folks I know that have used this light have told me that the run times were less than an hour whereas a new 50 lumen LED light on 2AAs will run for 3 to 4 hours. I believe once the second generation of LEDs came around in 2007 or so that these light were then discontinued.
Shown below are beam shots compared to a 2AA Incan Mini Maglite. The LED is on the left and the Incan is on the right. The tree is about 20 feet away or so. The LED Mini Mag is much brighter than the Incan. It is easy to see why folks preferred the LEDs even if initial run time and tint weren't the best.
As with most Maglites, collectors tend to gravitate towards large cell lights that were not popular during their initial production run. This is evident with the 7Ds, 7Cs, and 5 & 6Cs. Like those lights these 3AAs do go for a god dollar on auction sites and forums. The going rate for one new in box, NIB, is anywhere from $50 to $100 depending on the finish.
I don't have a ton of info on these 3AAs. I think they were produced from 2003 to 2006. The serial number on my black one is in the 1,000,000 range and the blue one is in the 850,000 range which makes me think there were a lot of them produced. Like most other lights though I think many were stored with the batteries in them and then tossed when they leaked which is why they seldom come up for sale today. I have seen them in the standard finishes, black, blue, red, and silver. If anyone happens to have any production ranges or any additional information on them please contact me, my e-mail address is on the right.
As always I'm looking to buy Vari-Beams and Vintage/Rare Mags. Please let me know if you have any, top dollar paid.
Mag will still warranty these. I called them and asked for a new LED assembly and they sent one for free minus shipping costs. The assembly looks more like a modern MiniMag LED assembly. Plenty bright and runtime seems to be well over 8-10hrs on some mismatched questionable cycled primary cells i had laying in a junk drawer. Granted it dimmed down to maybe 5 lumens but it still kept going. I should get some fresh cells and really try to measure its runtime.
ReplyDeleteA distinctly remember being in the base exchange looking at these after my first deployment. I had a hard time seeing a couple of the gauges in the engine room and my Chief laughed at the cheapo, 9 LED light I had. He told me to go pick up a proper light.
ReplyDeleteI was debating for a couple minutes about these exact LED lights vs the D cell. The 3AA - dim my today's standards - was still brighter than the incandescent. I got the D cell though because this particular light just looks akward to handle.
Hard to believe there was a time that LEDs were considered gimmicky.