Bill Wilby wrote:The dark blue looks black until you look closely and when the sun hits it you can see the metallic blue. It was very difficult to show this in a photo.
That's right, in the shade it was almost black, in the sunlight - metallic blue.
the things to look for to see the difference in the frames is the support under the stem, the supports added to both sides of locking latch bracket, the added support for the front tube at the front wheel and the bottom bracket redesign.
Do you have any photos of those improvements in your archive so I know exactly what to look for? All wepages and image hosting sites that reference them are 404'd.
EDIT: found the two main differences:

Even if it turns out to be an older model that's still a good deal considering it's (almost) brand new and costs about 35% less, am I right?
