Addicted from a young age, and while on security, used a 3 cell mag, but wanted something lighter for internal patrols, so found a MXDL SSC P7, then it started ……
this was one of them
A bit of a neutral tint ..hi /lo strobe 3AAA beautifully smooth beam w / zero rings
i still have it ..Wanna buy it ?
ITP A3 upgraded, (my previous was a solitaire flashlight, what a difference!)
I was reading my first ” Doc Ford” novel by Randy Wayne White. Doc Ford is a marine biologist who also belongs to an ultra secret black ops “assassin” group that even the president is not privy to.
In this book he pulled out something called a Fenix LD20, and described it as compact, high powered light that is effective in momentarily blinding an opponent.
Well, I googled “Fenix LD20, and look what’s happened to me.
A 6D maglite, I used to love that thing. I used to put a 5D bulb in it so as to over drive it a bit.
Thanks for the book suggestion I’ll have to have a look for them
generic light from Aldi, with a ‘cree’ probably around 50-100 lumen, blew me away being used to 5mm leds :d
my personal gateway light must have been the UK PenLight 2aaa. In 1997, xenon was still much brighter than LEDs. Also the first torch I EDC’d.
Eerily familiar.
Same story and my first light was a Spiderfire SSC-P7 (C8 knockoff). Blew me away that something so small could be so much brighter than the enormous Mag D lights.
After that, I was hooked.
Incandescent: Got my first Maglite, a 4 D Cell around 1981ish. I remember thinking "this thing is freaking bright!" Wow, how things have changed...
LED: It started about 6 or 7 years ago with the Inova T4 rechargeable. I think they were originally 100 lumens which at the time was considered extremely bright for an LED flashlight.
sipik sk68 clone from focalprice earlier this fall…
I think it was Black Cat from DX.
This was the one that got me hooked and I had to have more!!!
Streamlight® Strion® Rechargeable LED Flashlight with Holder
Sure Fire 6P, Streamlight Scorpion and a Streamlight Poly Stinger started it all. An Inova Xo2 got me into LEDs.
A P60 drop-in and the Scorpion got me into modding.
A mag combo started it (3d + minimag) then I added a 3 led drop in to the minimag.
Few years down the line a cheap 3aaa Cree zoomy, then an xm-l zoomy, xm-l bike light and the madness set in…
While I've loved lights since the 1970's, the thing that put me "over the edge" was coming across a salesman's sample case of Coast/LED Lenser lights.
It would've been far cheaper to have simply walked away from it, and never looked back...
I’ve loved flashlights since I was a little kid, but they were always weak incandescents. I carried my mini-mag every day at work for years. Then in 2008 I bought a Trustfire TR-801 with the hot at the time Q5 and my whole world of lights changed! 
Similar to this one,I bought in 1998 it was an incandescent ironically I found myself buying two. I miss those guys, they had a signalling switch so I could flash coworkers to get there attention.
http://www.flashlightmuseum.com/Garrity-Flashlight-Yellow-Tuff-Light-with-Black-Trim-2AA-1995
That is the closest to the model I could find using google. A year later I quit smoking and had over 20 flashlights by 1999 and led flashlights had started hitting the market.
An ITP SA2 Eluma .