Lost Lights MIA

Never lost a light.

Yep, me neither.

Hurricane Irma in 2017 and I had a CooYoo Quantum on a single key ring, which Ven sent me and I was pulling downed limbs away from my downstairs neighbor’s patio and it fell out of my pocket and into the grass.

I had my Convoy M2, so the peanut wasn’t being used.

Never did find it, or the key, but I didn’t lock the door that time!

Chris

My wife lost her (it was mine initially) ZebraLight a couple years ago. We were on vacation in a cabin on the lake and when we came back home she noticed that the 18650 SC62w was missing. We searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. She felt very bad about it and I was surprised as to how much it affected her.

She then contacted the cabin owner about it and got info on the person that cleans the cabin. And luckily found out the cleaning person found her ZebraLight and kept it. The cleaning person noted that her boyfriend looked up the flashlight and saw how expensive it was. It was very unprofessional that she took the flashlight rather than just leaving it in the cabin. But it was good that she admitted to finding it and we were able to pick it up.

So I guess all is well that ends well. And my wife was so grateful to get her flashlight back!

Lights I’ve lost:

  • My prized Convoy S2, back when it had a 3/5 driver and wasn’t so prized. I went to watch a presentation at work one day and it slipped out of my pocket. Luckily a colleague saw it and picked it up for me.
  • A Convoy M1. I went out in shorts to the supermarket one night and could swear it had fallen off the (big) side pocket as I moved in or out of the car. Even contacted the supermarket’s Lost & Found incase an employee had seen it when collecting the shopping buggies at the parking lot, but no. That one was pretty heartbreaking… Until on another hot day months later, I went to place my sunglasses on the holder above the driver’s door, and the case wouldn’t fit despite being small! So I reach in and… guess what was inside there. Totally forgot I’d put the torch up there secifically to prevent dropping from the pocket. Oops. :blush:
  • A Thrunite T10. I used to forget it on top of the bathroom fixtures at work, and one day, it disappeared permanently. This one I wasn’t super affected by, it had a very ugly (low CRI yellow with a hint of green) XP-L inside, the mode distribution sucked – it was too low on Moonlight and Low and way too much on High, made worse by the extremely floody beam profile –, and it had an old dented Eneloop inside. Whatever. I much prefer the Lumintop Tool AA 2.0 I bought to replace it, it’s better in all aspects, including beam quality, despite being cool white.

Olight H1 Nova on my last hiking trip to Lawu mountain.

Lost a Surefire LX2 Lumamax. Well, I know where it went but I never got it back.
Lost a Surefire E2D Defender ultimate due to a shitty pocket clip design. The clip was still attached to my pocket at the end of the day, but the light wasn’t.

Almost lost a 4/7s quark QTLC. I dropped it, off, in the middle of a field on a pitch black night. It took me 15 minutes crawling around on my hands and knees to find it and I started looking right where I dropped it. That experience is one of the reasons I like the aux leds on the D4V2 I EDC now. I leave them on low red and I’ll always be able to find it if that happens again.

i know i lost several dozen of lights, from edc, headlamps to big hid searchlights that i build and accidentally lost at sea\lakes. most were lost in the woods while camping, there are also about as many i gave away, off the top of my head, i lost 3-4 convoys, leatheman s3, several maglites, moded and not, zebralight, 2 d-10 lights, pelicans, two surefire e2, and about 2 dosens of light that i build from scratch and moded.

Good to hear that it was retrieved! At the rate your story was going, I was expecting it ended with your wife buying a replacement off of Zebralight’s website. Glad to know that despite those cleaning people keeping the light, they did return it once OUTTED.

I once lost a Jetbeam U. I had on a pair of shorts with a thin pocket rim… the clip wasn’t holding on as tightly as I had expected. End of day, went to reach for it… not there. Never found. But… $11, so no cries. :wink:

Lost my RovyVon Aurora A8 once… that thing is smaller than my pinky finger. I hadn’t been in the habit of using the loop to lasso it to a lanyard or strap. Well, I finally found it. It slipped underneath something else and I just kept missing it until one day I did a bag dump. Now, it’s on my house keyring with spring loaded clip. Just detached it yesterday when I went for a late evening kayak round. Clipped the thing to the kayak’s bungee cord. “Don’t need no flashies—what a useless feature!” Huh. Well, sure was useful to me. My kayak was resoundingly visible because I had it in yellow double-flash beacon mode. It even illuminated boat buoys in the shallow end of the bay so I could avoid them. Had the thing flashing for well over an hour and the primary still had plenty of juice. Not a bad little light after all.

Bummer! Well, the good thing is that headlamp choices are so numerous now. You can find one with a better tint quite easily. Took a look at your Instagram. Real old school stuff there. Nice collection!

NO, you CAN NOT borrow my 10mm socket!!!

1 Thank

At least you have not lost your mind.

lol, i wont ask, i have my own, tools i care about much more than lights, can’t remember when i lost tools, lights otoh, are disposable items, some more some less, i do not care much about them.

I’ve lost an L3 Illumination L10 (or was it an L11) somewhere in my very small flat, around 2017-18.

I’ve tried looking up under the furniture but to no avail. It really is a mystery to me :person_facepalming:

I lost a custom S2+ (must have slipped out of my jacket pocket on a trail).

I’m more bummed because it was a light that I spent time modifying. All black. It had a dedomed 519A 2700k / 10003-15 Carclo optic / 5A 12 grp driver and reverse switch. It’s not a huge loss but I hope whoever finds it can put it to good use.

All present and accounted for. ( I think)

But… a friend of mine, a top machinist (Texas Lumens) told me about making a one-off custom that took him 17 hours just to program the CNC to perform! It was a lizard wrapped around the light, very detailed and even air between underbelly and light, ultra realistic… $2500 light! The customer was deep sea fishing and tossed it to his buddy who missed the catch! One ultra fancy uber expensive custom light on the bottom of the ocean!

Dan told me the guy called him then and there on his satellite phone and ordered a replacement!

1 Thank

OG Inova X1, lost about a decade ago, probably when I was dismantling the flat-pack furniture it was stored in. Might have ended up in another box or a crevice of my garage. I hope I didn’t leave an alkaline cell in it.

Dozens ….

About 3 years ago I think I packed up about 20 lights to show my brother coming into town an array of AA/ 14500 and a ton of 2xAA lights plus god knows what . These were from my personal collection and most weren’t duplicates . The fact that they’re still missing is bad but there remains the plaguing gnawing fear that if they ever show up … something will have alkalines in it instead of nimh . I’d actually kind of like to have the 25 eneloops as well .
Also I’m pretty sure there’s a defiant super thrower somewhere with some rotting C cells in it too .

This is the price we pay for having too many lights .

Dead Convoy S2.
Was keeping for future modding/sale

Probably got tossed with box of e-waste.

IYP07 Black host, Nichia 219c 4000k, it was such an amazing light, close to perfect tint, perfect output for around the house, dissappeared in the pocket, so well, it did just that. 1 out of over 200 lights, doen to 158 currently, I do have 4 trade lights in route, this hobby is addicting;)

I lost 1 1/2 lights.

Factor Equipment Mizpah 130 lost out of my pocket.

I had the head of a Prometheus Beta QR come off of the body and go missing. I still have the body in case the head turns up, but it’s been a couple of years, so I doubt it.

My wife had a Mizpah 130 and inadvertently left it laying at her work station, and the next day it was gone.