Opposite problem here. Having collected dozens and dozens of lights in last 30+ years I'm absolutely not able to convince myself to sell even one. Sometimes I buy couple in same model and use one as gift, but selling the only remaining one in any model is just not in my power. I love sometimes to go through even the very old, often inefficient cheap lights and mod them in some new way. Selling will just take away the fun that that larger collection can provide. (BTW the very same story with knives).
I'm with this guy.... lights are a new fetish for me, but I have collected stuff with a wreckless abandon since I was a kid and sought after railroad telegraph wire glass insulators... and soda bottles on days no insulators were found. I got switched a few times for lurking near the railroad tracks but did it anyway knowing the consequences.
Through my teens I collected Hot Wheels cars and skateboard paraphinalia. My 20's was still full soda bottles from 1960's back. Also old NASCAR memorabelia and model cars.
My 30's were a kinda dry spell due to some struggles so I collected stickers mostly. Well that and music CD's. An $8 CD could keep me entertained in my apartment for weeks while sewing patches on old jeans or writing story books for kids (that I never got around to completing)
My 40's was more stickers and sneakers. Yes I collected sneakers. And late 40's was the bicycle collection. I met my wife at 41 and together we collected film and digital cameras.
At 50 I collected Honda Preludes, but finding storage for those was an issue... kinda big to fit in my living room so by Prelude #9 they got sold. All but one.
At 51 I began collecting flashlights. For work at first. The whole quest for best tint, most lumens or fancy interface never really was a motive. Instead I've been collecting "purposed" lighting tools. Actually that began while restoring those Preludes where finding a dropped screw or viewing a hose clamp in a very crowded engine bay taught me the virtues of flooders vs pencil beams and various outputs vs sunlight. Also seeking info about inline wiring LED lamps into incan circuitry for auto interior lighting is how I ended up here.
I often gave away stuff collected over the years, but not really sold anything. I gave away most of my insulators, and soda bottles. As the kids grew into them I gave away many pairs of sneakers my NASCAR and my HotWheels stuff. Most of the stickers and CD's were given away along with some of the cameras. Several bicycles were gifted and I gave the Preludes to my oldest son so he could sell them to fund his resto-mod Prelude while paying most of his minimum wage earnings for rent and groceries. The last 2 Christmas' I thinned out the flashlight accumulation a bit. But at some point a bunch of the relics will be donated to a museum (with the history of each one attached). Some, which are super rare or one-of-a-kind type will be kept as inheritances.
My parents learned while I was young, that I had some kind of OCD thing and would pay a heavy price to obtain items the voices talked me into. So by the time I was 12 they stayed out of my way or even lended a hand in the process.
One day while in my early 40's my dad saw the UPS man drop off a 48" skateboard deck and asked me "when are you going to grow up?" to which I remarked "when you do".... he had a perplexed look on his face. I said "you have at least 9 Colt 45 1911's and bought yourself a 4 wheeler at 72". My mom collected antique glassware, furniture and Avon stuff. At one point she collected housplants and antique dolls. My grandma (my mom's mom) collected stuff including automobiles and lawnmowers at one point. So it was both nature and nuture. At one point my grandmother collected antique magazines and when she passed we found a stash of various eggshells from various birds.
Now regarding your plight GG, it's understandable that the older flashlight ends up being missed. Although there is all kinds of charts n graphs stating the updates are better there is a charm to what was produced a few years ago. And like life in general the one that raised a smile a few years ago will always be the benchmark to which we judge all other lights by. It's human nature. Sometimes a certain sight or smell subconciously takes you back to a simpler time too. Like when you pass through the ladies section at JC Penny and a particular perfume brings back memories of Christmas morning when you were 10, or the beam of a flashlight causes you to reminisce the 22 blumens of an old ARC....
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