$ctime(18/1/2038 19:14:06) is the last date ctime will allow.
Other than making for fun trivia is 2147483646 or 2^31 seconds from 01/01/1970. Which is understandable as mIRC uses an signed integer. My suggestion is to allow $ctime dates before 1970 to return negitive numbers. A.K.A seconds until 1970. As, negitive numbers aren't already used it shouldn't be hard to do.