Estes Rocket Catalogs - Today vs. The Good Olde Days

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Cosermann

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
49
Reaction score
0
Was looking through some of my older Estes catalogs last evening and was struck by some of the cool descriptions of the old rockets.

Example:
Photon Disruptor (1980 catalog description) - "Equip your star fleet with this sophisticated scale missile from the 23rd century. Designed primarily as a mass conversion weapon to overload the defensive screens of an enemy vessel, the actual Photon Disruptor may also be programed as an interceptor missile, a proxsimity space mine, or a space distress signal. Exact size, speed, range, and destruct radius of this vehicle are classified. Photon Disruptor uses impulse power unit and guidance system for launch from planetary surface." Specs. and etc.

THAT inspired the imagination and made you want that rocket! Compare to:

Photon Disruptor (2014 catalog description) - "Length: 24.5 in (62.2 cm) Diameter: 1.33 in (34 mm) Estimated Weight: 2.4 oz (68 g) Fins: Laser cut wood Recovery: 18 in (46 cm) Parachute Projected Altitude: 750 ft (229 m) Recommended Engines: B4-4 (First Flight), B6-4, C6-5"

Boring! Am I the only one who thinks the should bring back the old catalog writers?
 
I just wanted to post to say I love your avatar. I remember sending in for the iron-on extensions for each skill level. :)
 
I just wanted to post to say I love your avatar. I remember sending in for the iron-on extensions for each skill level. :)

Thanks! I've still got the stickers on one of my old toolboxes that served as my range box way back when.
It's too tiny to see, but the design on the rocket is a phoenix rising from the ashes. Thought it was an appropriate metaphor.
 
I miss two things from my early days in rocketry one being the imaginative descriptions for the rockets, come on Estes make me want that bird.
The other thing I miss Is the blast of "Colorado/Rocky Mountain air" when opening a package from Estes that I waited a month to get. I don't know if there was really a difference in the air,but it always smelled different to me as a kid.:confused2:
 
Last edited:
I brought that same thought up once before and a fella from Estes (Begar69[?]) said that the customers prefered it that way. Speaking for myself—I don't. I wonder how they came to that conclusion?

You're right that the old catalogs had much more to them. I really liked the descriptions and the drawing and photography much more then. They also had the "yellow pages" that I found quite helpful and instructive. They made you want to progress in the hobby and kept your imagination fired-up.

Now it's just "here's a rocket and these are it's specs." Really? Kind'a leaves me cold. You'd think with a little hype, education and marketing/copywriting they would be able to boost sales, but hey, if they're not interested...

72est016.jpg
 
Last edited:
I haven't looked at an Estes catalog in any detail for a number of years but you make an excellent point.

While a crusty oldster like me may not respond to some dreamy description, the seventh-grade me LOVED the line in the Big Bertha description that mentioned its "slow, realistic take-off." It made such an impression, I rarely read a flight card for a BB without adding that before hitting the launch button. Of course, the rocket club boys had other ideas as to what that meant and had lots of stupid fun with that.

I think a little work on the descriptions would help spark some young imaginations and get some of them interested in our hobby.

Let's hope they read this thread and get some less-dry words to go with the stats.
 
I stumbled upon scans of the '71 catalog a few weeks back - great stuff. Wonderful descriptions, an article about the dangers of "basement bombers" and just about enough technical data to get a kid an internship at the Cape. Plus, some nifty pics of rocketeers using field phones (I really gotta get one of those!).
 
I haven't looked at an Estes catalog in any detail for a number of years but you make an excellent point.

While a crusty oldster like me may not respond to some dreamy description, the seventh-grade me LOVED the line in the Big Bertha description that mentioned its "slow, realistic take-off." It made such an impression, I rarely read a flight card for a BB without adding that before hitting the launch button. Of course, the rocket club boys had other ideas as to what that meant and had lots of stupid fun with that.

I think a little work on the descriptions would help spark some young imaginations and get some of them interested in our hobby.

Let's hope they read this thread and get some less-dry words to go with the stats.


The "me" of today doesn't really care much about fancy back stories or descriptions. I'm more interested in the technical data. But the 10 year old "me" back in the day loved them!

For those that aren't aware, Estes has all their catalogs online as PDFs fr download for our viewing pleasure!
https://www.estesrockets.com/customer-service/full-catalog/

Jerome :)
 
The technical data has always been there. It's just amazing to me that folks wouldn't want a more entertaining description.

1998 seems to be the turning point. Catalogs since then seem to have less, and less description.
 
For those that aren't aware, Estes has all their catalogs online as PDFs fr download for our viewing pleasure!
https://www.estesrockets.com/customer-service/full-catalog/

For those or you using Linux (or Mac, possibly), here is a oneliner script to grab all the catalogs easily. (WARNING: you are going to download approximately 350Mb, so if your bandwidth is limited, stay away!)

1) Create a directory
2) Open a terminal and move into that directory
3) Launch the following command in the terminal:

for i in $(wget -q -O - https://www.estesrockets.com/customer-service/full-catalog/ | grep pdf | perl -pe 's/^.*?\"//; s/\".*//'); do wget $i; done

Have fun :)
 
Last edited:
While a crusty oldster like me may not respond to some dreamy description, the seventh-grade me LOVED the line in the Big Bertha description that mentioned its "slow, realistic take-off." It made such an impression, I rarely read a flight card for a BB without adding that before hitting the launch button.

I can vouch for that! Every time a BB is on the pad, that phrase is called into play. One great memory I have is from a launch in Acton where I put a D-10 in a Bertha and Kenn was doing the announcement. "This will not be a slow, realistic take-off. Oh Bertha you don't deserve this." (Or something more or less like that) I still giggle a little when i see Bertha in the box of rockets based on that alone.

I agree that I like the imaginative descriptions and hope that they come back. I am afraid that in this day and age, that is unlikely due to budget cuts and the need to be "agile" in business operations right down to re-using a standard template wherever possible.
 
I've always debated this topic in my head, wondering if it was just that I was younger and maybe I'm nostalgic for those times, but, yeah, looking at that language side by side, how can I not completely agree with you?
 
Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that space exploration was in its hey day. And we all had this really romantic vision of space? And it naturally followed that the descriptions of the Estes rockets were part of how we all felt. But now it's maybe a little bit old hat and everyone is more focused on data?
 
What I notice along with the description is of course the prices.
V2 Maxi Brute $13.95 and the Saturn V $16.95 :surprised:

Sure wish I had a crystal ball back then.
 
I agree.
The Descriptions with Story Lines really helped add to the Experience of building the Kits, and I miss them too.
 
What do I miss about “Old Estes” vs “New Estes”?

How about the fact that back in the day you could purchase every part used in every Estes kit separately and easily.

Those days are gone, though thankfully we have Semroc to fill that void.

Oh wait!!

Crap!!
 
What do I miss about “Old Estes” vs “New Estes”?

How about the fact that back in the day you could purchase every part used in every Estes kit separately and easily.

Those days are gone, though thankfully we have Semroc to fill that void.

Oh wait!!

Crap!!

I'm willing to bet that you're not the first to say that... You won't likely be the last either.

Thankfully we do now have the infernal net, to link us together so we can share or buy what we want/need (presuming we have the dough), or lament that we collectively can't find it anymore.
 
I'm willing to bet that you're not the first to say that... You won't likely be the last either.

Thankfully we do now have the infernal net, to link us together so we can share or buy what we want/need (presuming we have the dough), or lament that we collectively can't find it anymore.

But using the net you can only buy what is offered for sale.
I’d like to get my hands on a few of the BT60 plastic nose cones used on the Estes “QCC Explorer” along with a couple from the Estes “Screaming Mimi” but Estes doesn’t sell them and neither does anybody else.
With the passing of Semroc we lose access to a whole slew of parts that NOBODY ELSE offers. Indeed Semroc’s passing has even affected other model rocket companies, witness the shutdown, hopefully temporarily, of “Red River Rocketry”.
 
IINM the Solar Warrior has the same N/C as the QCC Explorer. Isn't the Screamin' Mimi's N/C just a PNC-60AH? (like you, I'd like a few of each too).
 
Last edited:
For those or you using Linux (or Mac, possibly), here is a oneliner script to grab all the catalogs easily. (WARNING: you are going to download approximately 350Mb, so if your bandwidth is limited, stay away!)

1) Create a directory
2) Open a terminal and move into that directory
3) Launch the following command in the terminal:

for i in $(wget -q -O - https://www.estesrockets.com/customer-service/full-catalog/ | grep pdf | perl -pe 's/^.*?\"//; s/\".*//'); do wget $i; done

Have fun :)

Ya can't just go around telling everybody about wget! Next thing you know, someone will be posting the url for the windows version!

https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm

SEE! I toldja! BTW, if the dir that wget is in is in your path, (or you point to it in a command line in linux), your "one liner" is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. You can set it up to be recursive, and to only download specific file types.
 
Ya can't just go around telling everybody about wget! Next thing you know, someone will be posting the url for the windows version!

https://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm

SEE! I toldja! BTW, if the dir that wget is in is in your path, (or you point to it in a command line in linux), your "one liner" is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. You can set it up to be recursive, and to only download specific file types.

I never got to learn more options for wget but I guess I should! Last time I tried to grab a specific file format following a tutorial, it did not work so, since I can do some piping and user perl for search and replace, I stuck to that approach.

How about posting this simpler version? :)
 
How about posting this simpler version? :)

For windows...open a DOS window and go to the directory wget is installed in. In my case it's c:\program files\gnuwin32\bin .
Type the following exactly, case is important for command line instructions!

wget -r -A .pdf https://www.estesrockets/customer-service/catalog-full/

and hit enter. Wget will go through the indicated directory, and any subdirectories below that. It will create a series of directories that match the directory structure from the site you're downloading from. The file types (comma separated) following the -A command are all that will be downloaded. You've got to get spelling right! You should see a progress report as the program checks out each directory and begins transferring files. Let me know if you have problems.
 
I haven't looked at an Estes catalog in any detail for a number of years but you make an excellent point.

While a crusty oldster like me may not respond to some dreamy description, the seventh-grade me LOVED the line in the Big Bertha description that mentioned its "slow, realistic take-off." It made such an impression, I rarely read a flight card for a BB without adding that before hitting the launch button. Of course, the rocket club boys had other ideas as to what that meant and had lots of stupid fun with that.

I think a little work on the descriptions would help spark some young imaginations and get some of them interested in our hobby.

Let's hope they read this thread and get some less-dry words to go with the stats.
I really haven't looked at an Estes catalog much other than to look for recommended engines or glance through to see what rockets are available, so I'm not sure if having more imaginative descriptions would really make a difference for me. Of course when I was much younger I would go through the catalog more thoroughly trying to decide what my next great purchase would be.

I still remember the "slow realistic take-off" description of the Big Bertha and smile when Kenn includes that in the launch details.
 
I still remember the "slow realistic take-off" description of the Big Bertha and smile when Kenn includes that in the launch details.

We didn't have any Big Berthas yesterday while I was on the mic and using the phrase on a Baby Bertha wouldn't be right from a physical or moral standpoint.
 
...How about the fact that back in the day you could purchase every part used in every Estes kit separately and easily. ...

Big +1 to that.

Another thing struck me reviewing the thread - and that's the idea that the creative descriptions may not appeal as much to older BARs, but rather appeal more to youngsters getting into the hobby. I think that's key, since it's the youngsters that are the future of the hobby.

Since today's young rocketeers are tomorrow's BARs, it seems that not appealing to younger hobbyists might be a weak/poor long-term business strategy.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top