robbing peter to pay Paul?

[yaesumofo]

I am not in the habit of selling lights even if it is so that I can buy another. I like to keep my lights. Especially if they are titanium McGizmo works of art.

Funny thing happened this week. Don started selling the Lunasol. Funny how a simple hanging of a for sale sign will make people do things they normally will not do.

I have always been fascinated by the "27mm" form factor. It is a cool size for a reflector.
For me though it actually ended up being a bit of a disappointment.
I was/am used to EDCing a smaller light. Most of the time it was a PD.
A while back when Don started selling the TI XR27C's I was caught un in the excitement and bought one. Unfortunately for me it was not the right light for me. The head size vs the body length just did not fit my style of carry. I did not find much advantage to the 27mm reflector when compared to the 19mm reflector.
Call me crazy but I prefer the smaller reflector in a single cell edc light. So against my better judgement my xr27C found it's way into the dark recesses of a drawer. Really a shameful place to go if you are a beautiful titanium work of industrial art.
I had gone out and bought a very expensive flashlight and stuck it into a drawer. I felt weird about it. Honestly I felt terrible that it was not the perfect light for me. I had been watching Don's development of his titanium dreams for as long as anybody. I wanted all of them for some unexplained reason.
IN the mean time I found myself EDCing a stock PD, the first PD-s and my TI pd, in rotation with a few other lights. In the mean time the XT27c sat without even a complete run a battery.
IMHO this is the wrong thing to do with a light of this caliber. What can I say it was not the right light for me. I felt ashamed that I wasted the money.

OK so some time passed I have been watching the development of the Lunasol again with a great deal of attention. Every setback seemed terrible. I was actually committed to NOT buying a Lunasol because of the high price and the fact that I felt like I had wasted money on a light which I did not use in the XT27C.

I like most of us I scan the BST forum on a somewhat regular basis, I noticed that Don's titanium lights sold rather briskly at higher prices that they were bought for.
I am not a flashlight trader. I have almost every light I have ever bought.
Again I have a certain loyalty to my flashlight collection. The thing is that most of them get used at least once in a while.
OK so there I was not into selling my lights not wanting to spend a lot of money of a Ti flashlight....
OK the gears aligned I could get a lunasol and NOT have to pay for it!!
I had a lunasol sitting in the drawer all I had to do is transmute it.
OK I know this is silly because there are so many guys who do this all the time. I am slow on the uptake I guess. It is pretty easy to have whatever flashlight you want as long as you are willing to give one up. That is the hard part for me. Even if it is sitting around not being used I found it very difficult to place that ad to sell the XR27C. I carefully searched the BST for past sales of the light. There don't seem to have been that many but the ones that were sold were not quite like mine. Mine being a bone stock light new as the day I received it from Don.

I placed my BST ad and the light sold in something like 4 minutes. Wow the power of the titanium + McGizmo combination is powerful.
I received enough to buy a lunasol and (in the near future) buy a holster for it from art of the hide. How cool is that? pretty cool.
Do I feel bad about it? YES I have a sense of loss. I gave something up and I still have not received my Lunasol. But it is coming. I am pretty sure that the feeling of loss will go away pretty quickly.

OK so what am I going to do if I don't find the Lunasol size and form factor to my liking? Since I have only exchanged lights I don't think I will feel all that bad. Since I like the Mule beam and the PD beam I have a feeling that the combination will suit my needs perfectly

I am stoked to be moving from one great (more to some than to me) flashlight into another which may suit my needs better than the one it is replacing.

OK Why am I telling you guys this story?
Well I would like to know if any of you guys have been faced with similar feelings and actions?

I hate to flow against the current. The XR27C is a great light MY problem with it was purely subjective. It just did not work for me.
Funny thing is how bad I felt that it wasn't perfect in every way as to be right for me!!
I feel like I should have been satisfied with the XR27C on the basis of design alone.
Don's lights are tools and I want to be able to use them as tools. Unfortunately that tool was not right for me.
I have a huge amount of respect for Don and his work. His designs are fine examples of American design. Simple yet elegant. There is in his work little excess, nothing is accidental. The "DNA" of his work can be seen in the PD as well as the Lunasol. as can the evolution. How amazing.
Don Thanks for making the XR27C. Without it I would have never been able to get a Lunasol

I hope I haven't bored you with this silly story.
I seem to write somthing up like this in antisipation if a new McGizmo light.

Have fun.
Yaesumofo

 

[tylerdurden]

OK Why am I telling you guys this story?
Well I would like to know if any of you guys have been faced with similar feelings and actions?

YES!

However, I have currently own a TINY number of lights, relative to what I've owned over the years. Basically, I have a McLux, an Aleph 2/1x123, an L4, an M3T with a LuxV module, and a couple of Arc AAAs. That's pretty much it. I got rid of the shelf queens and only keep what I actually use on a regular basis. Now that I have those, I've gotten attached to them, and I don't think I'd sell them even if I did replace them. I've got the stories that go with the scratches on them. I don't particularly place a strong attachment on the fact that I built or modified these (I haven't done anything to the L4), the importance and "connection" with the light comes through use. I certainly never felt bad about building new lights for others and selling them as soon as I could get them built. Its enough to know that someone else is "connecting" with that particular light.

I hope I haven't bored you with this silly story.
I seem to write somthing up like this in antisipation if a new McGizmo light.

Not at all! I think since I've been gone so long I actually enjoy the intangible side of the hobby now more than things like runtimes, beamshots, etc. But I still like the tangible stuff too!

 

[AvroArrow]

OK Why am I telling you guys this story?
Well I would like to know if any of you guys have been faced with similar feelings and actions?
<snip>
I hope I haven't bored you with this silly story.
I seem to write somthing up like this in antisipation if a new McGizmo light.

Have fun.
Yaesumofo

Funny you should mention this because I did a sort of similar thing. For the first time since I joined this wonderful board about 4 years ago I put my first For Sale post in the marketplace recently in order to liberate some funds in anticipation of the LunaSol. I actually started with a couple of private sales first to get the hang of actually receiving paypal instead of the usual sending of it. Then I posted my FS ad. All said and done, I sold about 7 lights, from Arc LS's to Surefires, all of which weren't really seeing any use and some were duplicates or even triplicates of lights I had acquired long ago.

Like you, I tend to keep what I buy because it usually takes me a while to decide to buy a light. I think I've been fortunate to only have one light that I really didn't like and it was the one impulse buy that I did (a SF L1 Cree). Fortunately for me, the CPFer who I bought it off of graciously took it back and refunded me my money. :thumbsup:

I agree that McGizmo's lights are very much like industrial art that also happens to be a fine illumination tool. I bought my very first McGizmo, a Ti PD-S back in Nov.07 which he mentioned may be his last run of those. That pretty much erased any hesitation on my part to buy it, even though it was my most expensive single light purchase to date. My previous most expensive light was about $150 for a HDS U60GT, so the triple jump in spending gave me some pause before I sent McGizmo my WTB e-mail. But I'm glad I did because now I'm hooked.

Actually, prior to the Ti PD-S purchase, I always kept a look out for a slate or natural HA Al PD-S but they all tended to fetch high prices (in the mid-$300 range), and I couldn't justify it for a 2 level light that was "only" made of aluminum. So when McGizmo posted that last run of Ti PD-S's for "only" the mid-$400s, that seemed like a great deal. I still want a slate or HA PD-S now, but my need has eased off a lot since I bought the Ti PD-S and now the LunaSol too.

But this does have a down side to it. When I saw the price of the LunaSol, I actually sighed in relief because it was more affordable than I thought it was going to be. Haha! I can't believe I just said that a $500+ light was "affordable", Haha! Prior to the sale thread, Don mentioned that the LunaSol was more complex and time consuming to build so the price was going to have to go up accordingly so I was sort of frightened how much it would cost and if I could afford and justify buying it. So yeah, the down side I mentioned is the stretching of one's boundaries and limits for expensive lights. I'm already taking stock of what I can liquidate to fund a Spy 007, which I know is going to be more than the LunaSol. :naughty: And I'm running out of Arc LS's and Surefires that I'm willing to sell.

Whew! That was longer than I intended but I feel much better now that I've typed all that out and I hope that answers your question in a round about way.

AvroArrow

 

[Codeman]

Yeap, I've had the same internal discussion recently, as I'm recouping from an expensive watch purchase. I know that I could have sold one of my Ti McGizmo lights to fund a LunaSol, but I like the ones I have and I seriously doubt that I would carry the LunaSol. So I resisted this time.

 

[TOOCOOL]

I hope I haven't bored you with this silly story.



Yaesumofo

No that was an entertaining post :thumbsup:

 

[seattlite]

Yup! I also have a XR-27C and was going to sell it to fund the LunaSol. I realize the markup that I could get and now is the perfect opportunity to sell while the marked is relatively hot. However, I find that money is easily replacable, compared with things. You can always make more money....its hard to replace something of limitied availability.

 

[iconoclast]

...
However, I find that money is easily replacable, compared with things. You can always make more money.....

While this is technically true, it's often the specific quantity of money that's the issue. Hence, I still haven't managed to pick up an XR-27C even though one was recently available.

Unfortunately, if you see a rare find pop up in B/S/T you typically don't have the opportunity to sell off that shelf queen in time to pay for the new item before it's gone.
At least with the LunaSol27, you knew it was coming (sooner or later ) and could prepare in advance.

 

[jeffb]

Have owned many of McGizmo's creations, McLux, Alephs, PD's, in various forms, Mule and have carried the Alephs, and PD's . the Ti PD-S was perhaps the best light to carry, as I liked the tint, beam, size for carry. I used the Mule indoors and occasionally carried. I really liked the A19 Cree (123) except it was an original run and only had one level.

Decided that I was only going to keep lights that I will use and own, SOLD many and kept several (McGizmo's)that I WILL use.

I was NOT going to purchase a LunaSol, as I really felt that the 27mm head was too large and I PREFER pocket carry.

The flood and Cree beam enticed me to purchase a LunaSol and it is much much more than my expectation. The flood beam low and the high make this one of the most useful lights that I have used. I have pocket carried and will add a Lanyard....still deciding "best" way to carry.

Finish, fit and workmanship are "better" IMO than any other McGizmo productions.

LunaSol is a keeper.

jeffb

 

[charlesn]

The choice of a tool is a personal decision. A light is a tool. Whether or not a particular light is the right tool for YOU is a choice that only YOU can make. It doesn't matter who made the light or how good it's "supposed" to be -- if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. End of story. No apologia necessary.

My question is this: if you decided that the 27mm form factor was not right for you--i.e., it's too big, which makes perfect sense if you're accustomed to EDCing a 19mm head--why would you replace it with the IDENTICAL form factor? Sure, the LunaSol is the latest and greatest, and I sure can't wait to get mine in a few more days, but it's essentially same light that ended up as a drawer queen for you, except for the new ring of Nichias.

 

[yaesumofo]

It was more an issue of the 27mm reflector not having the kind of pay off I expected from a larger reflector. When I compared the two 19 and 27. I was not able to see a huge difference at the range I use my lights 90% of the time which was significant enough to warrant carrying a light with a head too big to comfortably edc along with the extra length of the C battery pack (compared to the PD pack). For me size of the XR27C was too long as well as being too wide at the head.
The lunasol Hopefully will avoid these issues. the larger form of the head is better balanced with the shorter (PD) (IMHO) tail switch as well as being a dual purpose head with it's wide and tight beams.
It really isn't the same light though. It is shorter and multi purposed....
If I end up EDCing the Lunasol I have a feeling that I will either use a holester (art of the hide) or I will make a lanyard to carry it around my neck. At work I am sure I will carry the light on a lanyard. Again for me the C pack was a bit long (if even in my mind) for neck lanyard carry.
Hell for all I know the 27mm head will not work for me. Really time will tell.

If it doesn't work for me then the lunasol will sit in the drawer until the next "greatest" thing comes out I guess.
Yaesumofo

The choice of a tool is a personal decision. A light is a tool. Whether or not a particular light is the right tool for YOU is a choice that only YOU can make. It doesn't matter who made the light or how good it's "supposed" to be -- if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. End of story. No apologia necessary.

My question is this: if you decided that the 27mm form factor was not right for you--i.e., it's too big, which makes perfect sense if you're accustomed to EDCing a 19mm head--why would you replace it with the IDENTICAL form factor? Sure, the LunaSol is the latest and greatest, and I sure can't wait to get mine in a few more days, but it's essentially same light that ended up as a drawer queen for you, except for the new ring of Nichias.

 

[charlesn]

Ah, I had forgotten about the C pack being longer than the PD body, in addition to the larger size of the head. And I have to agree that the 27mm head, mated to a single cell body, didn't offer enough benefit vs. the 19mm head to justify the larger size. (Different story, though, with the 2-cell 27LT-S... now that's a light I'll never sell. Of course, it's hardly a pocketable EDC.)

I also agree that the LunaSol, with its 2-lights-in-1 utility, is a whole new reason to consider a 27mm EDC.

 

[souptree]

And I have to agree that the 27mm head, mated to a single cell body, didn't offer enough benefit vs. the 19mm head to justify the larger size.

The S27 shows it's virtue when more throw is needed. I have taken a PD-S and an S27 out on trails side by side and for me, their functions arrange very neatly:

City: PD-S
Trail: S-27 + Mule

No contest!

I am looking forward to giving my new Luna Sol a real world test soon to see if it can reasonably replace BOTH the Mule and the S27, but that big S27 reflector is the part I like best out of all of McGizdom.

I would like to see a Luna Sol concept combo with the Nichias around a 27mm reflector in a 38mm head. I have a funny feeling that THAT is my McGrail.

 

[Codeman]

...
I would like to see a Luna Sol concept combo with the Nichias around a 27mm reflector in a 38mm head. I have a funny feeling that THAT is my McGrail.

Driven by 2x123 and 917mA or so... Oh, yeah!

 

[yaesumofo]

I seem to remember a early prototype which resembles what you are describing here
There is a picture of it in the Lunasol FAQ.
I liked the look of that prototype. The Head is too big for me to EDC though. the 27mm head is pushing it for me. I love the 19mm form factor.

Yaesumofo

Driven by 2x123 and 917mA or so... Oh, yeah!