I have a Brinkman LED light that is probably 15 years old. At the time I thought it was amazing. Needless to say, things have gotten brighter since then. However, it still works.
Does the Mini-Mag 2AA that I lost in the attic insulation count? I had that for decades. It started it's life as an incandescent but I put in a Nite-Ize LED conversion as soon as they came out. That same LED was still going strong until it fell into the attic insulation last month. It had been used so much I twice had to put a new O-ring on the front of the barrel so that it would stay in focus and stop turning on by itself. I now find that I have several of the MiniMags stashed in various drawers and cabinets. I found them while looking for a temporary replacement for my original. Oh Well!
I had the same eye opening experience between a 1xAAA Fenix L0D and 3xD Maglight out in the woods!
Miss the days of the legendary L0D and I must have bought about a hundred of them to collect and give to all my friends, many of whom are still using them!
I still have a couple of each of the Gerber Firecracker and Tempo lights that I bought, I guess around 2003? I EDCed the Firecracker for a couple of years, then bought a Maratac AA, then a Jetbeam BA01, then a Surefire 6P, and the the current Malkoff MD2. The oldest light that I own that was converted to LED, is a 2AA Maglite that was Match Modded, the light is from the mid 90's, if I remember right.
I still have the first Nitecore TM26 tiny monster. I remember being so astounded with the light output when I got it. Now I pick up that heavy lump of metal and think… “4,200 lumens??!! Is that it?”
I wonder if I’ll be saying the same thing about my Acebeam X75 5 or 10 years from now when I have a 250,000 lumen keychain light
Among the oldies that I still use, the 9v PALlights, an Eternalight Derringer and Eternalight EliteMax. The constant glow of the 9v PALlights has stood the test of time. The Derringer comes in handy for show production with it's momentary mode. I can keep it clipped to my lanyard and light things momentarily as needed. The EliteMax would be my first programmable flashlight and still gets somewhat regular use.
I probably still have stuff older than that, but it's not used regularly.
Before blue LED’s, before white LED’s, one option was amber. One on right is from way back then. Laughing Rabbit was so kind to send me a new amber Photon after I told them about the split case on this old timer. Still works. I put Yuji emitters in most of my Photon pinch lights.
Welp my 4 D Mag is my oldest light, it was a incandescent but was replaced with the 1st gen led drop-in. The body is going on 26yrs, the led drop-in was a mag original so I'm guessing 2006ish, so 17 years. Had no reason to upgrade it, and just recently the mag went in one of my cars. I should put something else in it tho, the body is just a tank (as if that's a secret....).
My HDS is from 2010 (I think), it is my oldest pure LED light. Chilling in my pocket right meow.
Not the first one I ever had, but the oldest that I still have (and sometimes use) is my Fenix E50, which should be like 12 -years old now. I still think it is a very good light, even by today's standards. Reasonably bright and very flexible in terms of types and number of cells that can be used.
Inova X5 my first LED light
Fenix L1T 3watt 😁
Fenix T1
The Inova X5 bought locally I think Target store got me thinking about LED and then I went searching online and found the Fenix L1T and it got me totally into flashlights.
I took my wife and 3yr old son on a weekend "trip" to Georgia but I did not tell her we was going to Cloud Canyon for the 4sevens get together and the Quark launch. There where pictures on here of that event with David Chow and about 25 of us, got my first Quark that afternoon and during the evening we shined a throw light across the canyon.
Good times but my wife still gives me crap about it good naturally, she tells anyone she can how I tricked her to a weekend of flashlight convention but really it was just a few hours or so but I don't correct her it's kind of true. Wish I could find that pic with David Chow and many of the old school CPF members.
I have so many multi led lights from the early 2000’s i have no idea which came first. I think my first led light might have been called night blaster. I have a bunch of the inova multi led lights as well as a light with a “squrcle” beam. A handful of nuwai led lights and a first gen fenix light in a box. Still toy around with my jetbeams with IBS once in a great while. Bad acronym but really great programming function and the jet II even has focusing. A nitecore IFE1 in a white box on the shelf. Some old novatac’s sitting in a box somewhere after being replaces by HDS’s. I have a desk full of every color of the photon microlights with a photon headlight and a first gen aviator and L4 on the same desk. I put batteries in the L4 once in a while to compare to newer lights. It’s pretty amazing how far led technology has progressed. I also have a few twist on zebra lights clipped to a shelf with some streamlight twin tasks next to them. Would love to know what year zebralight came out with their first light. If any of these ring a bell perhaps someone could shed some light on which is oldest to newest.
I miss my surefire 6P. It wasn't super old, but I got it second-hand around 2010. I've had lots of lights since, but none have felt the same. Never got around to getting a fancy drop-in for it, but did have an MC-E drop-in that I loved. All those visible bond wires from before the flip-chip days make the emitter look super tech-y!
The oldest light I still have at the moment is an ultrafire AA that was modded to an XR-E 5C, li-ion driver, and pimped out with glowies and trits. Somehow, I can keep track of my cheap-o lights...
@jhc37013 I don't think I went to that specific event, but I do barely remember heading down to cloudland canyon for a CPF get-together once. It sounds like you took pictures; I wish I did that more. I think someone had an old aircraft landing light that they had converted to portable, that was pretty memorable seeing it blast across the canyon. And someone maybe named Steve?
Fenix L1p, 1 watt. 2 of them. Sent them to someone to have a beautiful green led and a "To Die For" Cyan led installed. Beautiful colors, both. The aircraft landing light was probably a Larrk14 or derivative.