As the elder of you may know flashlights come in vintages. The quality ones are replaced by better models with higher model numbers, the cheaper ones are produced once and sold until they are all gone. One of the sorely missed ones is the Jacob A60. It is widely listed as one of the best budget throwers ever.
I was late for the party so I do not own one. From time to time I check if there is one showing up in the ‘net but only found product pages that show me ’sold out’ AFTER I log in to buy one. But I learned. I am not that gullible any more. I can find the smallest hidden ‘Temporary out of stock’ signs now.
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Until a few weeks ago when I saw an ‘Energy - saving Jacob A60 Cree XR-E Q5 LED 310-Lumen 3-Mode LED Longshot’ at totomart.com for $12.24. Whoah, that is budget. :money_mouth_face:
I felt like Indiana Jones. $12.24 brand new! A live ‘Add to cart’ button, not greyed out. Get one before it is over.
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Maybe I should have noticed that in March the page still had its Christmas design.
My order was number 276. Wait - what?
It was not processed for 14 days. No answers from customer service.
Still Christmas design.
2014 I guess.
Hm.
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Okay. Greed may have dimmed my view. But not completely. I had a friend: Paypal.
It took them less than 8 hours to refund. :+1:
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So for those of you who want to experience the feeling of time travel and of missed opportunities: LL0151501.
Maybe they are back after holidays.
Was looking for threads about the Jacob A 60.
I bought one in 2014.
3 modes, hi, low, strobe.
Plastic reflector and an old cold white XR-E, ugly rings in the flood.
But it simply out throws my new C8 XP-L HI and my Courui XM-L2 too, even after improving both their focussing…
The Jacob gives such a tight beam, it’s truly amazing.
So i can imagine people being frustrated about not finding one.
Got the twin brother, the Tiablo A10G with XR-E R2 emitter. 260 lumens and about 40000 lux. It has about the same lux value as the 2x18650 single XM-L T6 throwers (back then) with about 800 lumens. Very tight beam indeed, but not practical in my opinion. The hotspot is too small and bouncy… It’s a classic (and quite expensive too).
It could be practical with a telescope
But i was just comparing it with my freshly focussed Courui ‘big head’ and Convoy C8 at 0:30 AM here, but this little old bugger just blows them away in pure throw…
I was planning on modding the Jacob with an XP-E2, but i’m afraid i might ruin it…
How is it expensive? Because it’s a classic?
I think i paid something like $ 15 for it in 2014.
That’s something I’m never sure of with these budget lights. It’s just like with the Skyray King; you have really bad ones with different construction, and you have really good ones. Maybe the design is the same, but the machining quality is much better or worse. All I know is that the Tiablo is top notch, with sharp lettering. The anodisation does look much better than the Jacob. The light also comes with two tailcaps; one with single mode max lumens, and another tailcap with variable output. I’ve never had a Jacob, so I can’t really can’t compare properly…
I have both the Jacob A60 (several actually) and a Tiablo A10G that I was lucky enough to pickup at one of the IS/illumn garage sales, and they are structurally quite different. Here’s one of my threads when I was modding the Tiablo:
Yeah I just found out; old memories. I believe the Matador was pretty much the same quality compared to Tiablo, and IIRC, that was pretty much the only model that was released (or was somehow known back then).
Both the Tiablo or Jacob are outdated when it comes to performance. All these 1000 lumen single 18650 XM-L2 lights have so much more lux values, not to mention the lights with XP-L HI, or lights with somehow larger reflectors… Man, even flood monsters can have 40000 lux…
Just looked it up, i bought my Jacob A60 on April 10 2014 for $ 9.66 at Aurabuy, nine days after joining BLF.
I bought another classic that day, the UltraFire WF-008 recoil thrower.
