Estes Rocket Catalog Collection

[redraindrop]

About a year ago I purchased an original Estes Scamp kit on ebay and it had 3 Estes catalogs included with it. They were in good shape and it seemed there were plenty of catalog sellers at the time so I decided to collect some catalogs in series.

Since I am a BAR (2003) but grew up in the 70's and early 80's Estes years I decided to concentrate on '75 thru present. I knew the early '60's catalogs and up to around '70 were pretty pricey, and I didn't want to invest alot in this collection.

I have managed so far to get these years: 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 , 97, 98, 2002, 03, 04, 05, and 2006.

For those of you checking, I am missing the crucial years of 77, 80, 83, 88, 99, 00, 01. I am currently bidding on a '80, and have been in on some 77's, 83's and 88's.

People have been going crazy on some of these. I've seen the ones I am short go for around $40 apiece. That's nuts!! I ony have maybe around $60-70 in ALL of mine so far.

Now the Questions:

1. I have never seen ANY 1999 thru 2001 catalogs. Did Estes produce any during those years?

2. Which is more valuable/rare? The catalogs with Kit prices or the ones without? (I know that up to about '78 they always had prices, but from '79 on there were two different catalog part numbers and the ones with prices ended in "P".

If any of you out there have collections or knowledge about this, I would like to hear from you.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Stymye]

I have a few 80's on up, there was quite a difference sometimes between the mail order catalog and the others

 

[Chrisn]

Here is a photo of all the catalogs of mine I could find (if only you knew how many boxes I had to search through missing is the Estes 2006 catalog that a TRF member sent me + a few others

Edit: also not pictured is a 1994 custom catalog, binder design and thrust aerospace '96 catalog

 

[redraindrop]

I really kick myself now for not saving any of the catalogs or kit package cards from some of the kits I built. If only I knew then what I know now...

I know I had quite a few catalogs, but don't know where they ended up.

Also, has anyone seen or gotten the 2007 Estes catalog, yet?
I usually pick mine up at Hobby Lobby, but haven't been to a store yet this year.

I did get a 2006 catalog from BSR Hobbies when I ordered from them last year, maybe I'll have to make another purchase of building materials and see if they'll send the 2007 with it.

 

[TeenRocketNerd]

I did get a 2006 catalog from BSR Hobbies when I ordered from them last year, maybe I'll have to make another purchase of building materials and see if they'll send the 2007 with it.

estes said on their forum that the 2007 catalogs have *not* been released yet... We were riding them pretty good to get them out...

 

[rokitflite]

I do not believe there was a printed 2000 catalog. I think that is the year they tried being "hi-tech" and you could only download it. That did not go over very well with the rocket community!