"Damon" period at Estes
 

I've seen quite a few references to rockets from the "Damon" period at Estes. I'm assuming this Damon person was a designer at Estes who made particularly cool rockets - it seems I always see this tag on the more unique models (ie, not just 4FNC). Can someone fill me in on details? Is there a list anywhere of the models Damon designed? Is he/she still around and available to answer questions about that era at Estes?

And speaking of such things, where is Estes design work done now? I read somewhere (here or TRF) about a fellow who went down to Penrose and received a very un-warm welcome. Sounded like the building is about closed down. Since they were bought out (a while ago, I know) by some bigger company I'm wondering if most of the operations have been moved elsewhere. It'd be cool to see the new "HQ" since they are doing tours in Penrose any more.

Damon was a toy company that bought the company from Vern. I have no doubt that others will know all the details off the top of their head - the years it was owned by Damon, the effects of the sell out, and when the current owner bought it, etc.

I thought Damon made medical equipment. Maybe you're thinking about Toy Biz, who owned Quest for awhile.

Tom C.

Damon Engineering,Inc was a medical products company. They purchased Estes Industries,Inc in Spet 1969, until early 1990 when NOMAD Partners, the new owners of DAMON since January 1989 sold off Estes.


Mar 25, 1988 SmithKline's Bid for Lab Testing Firm Reflects Desire to Keep Top Spot in Field

Apr 6, 1988 Damon Corp. May Be Target Of Takeover Bid
Apr 14, 1988 Damon Corp.
Apr 25, 1988 Damon to Spin Off Biotechnology Unit To Its Shareholders

Jul 6, 1988 Damon Corp. Calls Proposal Too Low But Offers to Meet
Jul 7, 1988 Two Firms Drop Proposed Buy-Out Of Damon Corp.

Aug 17, 1988 American Magnetics And Partnership Plan Damon Corp. Offer
Aug 19, 1988 Nomad Partners L.P. Begins $200 Million Tender Offer
Aug 22, 1988 Damon Sues to Block Nomad Bid Alleging Stock Manipulation
Aug 24, 1988 Damon Holder Sues Over 'Poison Pill,' Magnetics Overtures

Sep 1, 1988 Damon Corp. Claims American Magnetics' Bid Threatens Spinoff
Sep 20, 1988 Damon Corp. Plan For Holders Rights Is Upheld by Court
Sep 29, 1988 Damon Holders Tender Over 50% Of Shares in Offer

Oct 7, 1988 Damon Seeks to Thwart Bid
Oct 12, 1988 Immediate Spinoff Of Damon Biotech Proposed by Nomad

Nov 7, 1988 Damon Corp. to Give Financial Information To Nomad Partners
Nov 14, 1988 Nomad Partners Extends Offer
Nov 23, 1988 Nomad Extends Damon Offer
Nov 30, 1988 Nomad Extends Offer

Dec 7, 1988 Nomad Partners Extends Offer for Firm to Monday
Dec 9, 1988 Damon Corp. Discusses Merger
Dec 22, 1988 Damon Says It Talks With a Second Suitor On Possible Takeover
Dec 27, 1988 Damon Corp.'s Talks With Possible Suitor Have Been Suspended
Dec 29, 1988 Nomad Extends Hostile Bid

Jan 3, 1989 Damon Corp.
Jan 17, 1989 Damon Tentatively Clears Acquisition By Nomad Partners

Feb 21, 1989 Damon Biotech Taps Terry for President, Chief Executive Posts
Apr 17, 1989 Damon Corp. Posts $7.6 Million Deficit For Its 2nd Quarter
May 31, 1989 Partnership Acquires Damon
Aug 11, 1989 Damon Biotech to Seek More Outside Funding

January 4, 1990 Partnership's Unit Will Sell Its Hobby Products Business

hope this helps


terry dean

Hmmm, I didn't know that's what Damon did when it wasn't buying a toy company.

Go to page 4 at
http://www.oldrocketplans.com/mrn/m...RNVol09_No3.pdf
where Vern explains his rationale at the time for selling the company.

Damon made medical equipment and supplies, but they also had a division that was a competitor to Edmund Scientific. In fact, there was some cross promotion in 1970 as Estes customers were sent a Damon Education catalog and Damon Education customers were sent Estes catalogs. IIRC there was even a joint catalog at some point.

In the mid 80's they were known for their biomedical testing equipment (i think their cash cow was diabetic tests), and they were one of the first companies to bring out a simplified test for HIV. I think at that point some of the management saw a potential for being able to print money, and that's where Shockie's time line kicks in.

Don't forget that Damon also bought Centuri, with both companies co-existing until Centuri shut down around 1983. Toward the end, the companies became more and more intertwined with several identical product offerings.

Yes... but it was more of a 'merger' than Centuri 'shutting down'... go to http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/rockets.html and scroll down and check out the last couple or three Centuri catalogs... You'll find that the last Centuri catalog is produced EXACTLY like the Estes catalog of the time. The layout, symbols, everything except the products (most of them, interestingly enough the Pola-Pulse (Estes) launch controller is an exact duplicate of the Power-Pulse (Centuri) controller). If you read the last three, you'll see that about 1/3 of the Centuri line had been dropped by the time of the last catalog. Now Centuri was before my time, but I've really been enjoying reading all their old catalogs and stuff. Both companies were owned by Damon and Centuri was simply 'absorbed' into Estes and faded away...

Now to the orignal question... when people refer to the "Damon era" they're referring the changes made to the Estes products/company after Damon bought them out, as compared to when the company was owned/operated by Vern Estes. There was a marked change in the appearance, quality, quantity, direction, etc. of Estes products after the buyout from before. I got started during the Damon period so it's hard to speak firsthand, but I've talked to people about and read alot about 'the old Estes' and there were a lot of changes, both good and bad. Overall I didn't see it as a bad thing, just different, but then again I wasn't accustomed to the 'Vern Estes' Estes either, so other's will probably differ. I HAVE seen and experienced the difference between the Damon Estes and the current post-Damon Estes and I personally feel there has been a reemphasis that I don't particularly care for personally, but that makes sense to their board of directors/parent company and makes a good business case for them.

You're probably referring to my posts about my visit to Penrose and my observations of the appearance of their facilities and finding only a speaker and locked door and a semi-polite brushoff. Meh, that's a common thing now; direct 'personal' contact is out, even amongst individual people, so why should we expect companies to be any different.... I didn't mean to imply they were about to close the doors or anything, but my wife, who was a retail manager for many years, commented that the unkept appearance of their facilities is usually a sign of a business in trouble. May be a sign of a business about to be relocated to China or something... I don't know... But I DO know that it's an interesting contrast between the impersonal customer-disconnected Estes we now have (as others have pointed out in their elimination of their customer service phone lines to Christine ) and the personal friendly customer-oriented approach taken by Tim Van Milligan over at Apogee 40 miles away in Colorado Springs, and from what others have said, Quest over a hundred miles west or so, and from personal experience Semroc, who is also a VERY customer-service oriented business, as well as Dr. Zooch and others. IMHO the main thing Estes has going for them with most rocketeers is that they're the largest motor manufacturer out there. If it weren't for that, IMHO I think they'd be seen as a largely irrelevant 'toy company' by most rocketeers. Tim Van Milligan used to work as a designer for Estes, and I'd bet he has some interesting stories to tell, though he probably wouldn't...

Hope that helps... I hope some of the 'graybeards' will tell us more about the 'pre-Damon' Estes, since that was before my time. Check out those catalogs at ninfinger, I've really enjoyed reading them! OL JR :)

hey, ol' jr, didn't i see you over at TRF?! Guess this is a pretty small community we're in, eh?

Thanks to everyone for the details. I've read a few articles on Vern and the beginnings of Estes (including the article linked to above) and I have to say I wish I'd been a rocketeer back then (I was 6 in 1969 and didn't even know model rockets existed, sad to say). I really like what I hear/read about Vern's approach to the hobby and business in general - the level of customer service they provided should be the standard. I enjoy many of the modern Estes rockets but I'm not impressed with the company - their motiviation is clearly on profit with customer service at the lowest level they can get away with. Many of the modern rockets also seem very toy like. The RTF models are particularly lame!

Right now I'm really enjoying learning about the older Estes models and beginning to collect them. I'd love to collect the entire catalog but not sure that's possible even with eBay - some models just don't seem to be available and the old ones are dang expensive! I'm sure I will wind up cloning some of the oldest ones. And of course, while Estes has a strong appeal as one of the oldest and most prolific companies, there are other companies whose catalogs are equally if not more creative and important to the hobby that I would like to collect as well. No doubt this can be a life long pursuit that I'll never really finish - which is half the fun! And at some point my wife may draw the line as the collection takes over the house!

"Centuri" is a company name.

Centuri was not absorbed by Estes. Centuri did not shut down.

Centuri corporation actually owned (and may still own - don't know how it's currently structured in the "Estes-Cox" era) Estes.

Centuri corp simply stopped making Centuri branded rocket products for retail sale. Look at the Estes catalogs and copright info in the not-so-distant-past. They say "Centuri corp."

i knew that :)



interesting. but does it really matter? seems to me the bottom line is that there aren't, nor have there been for some time, centuri designed and styled rockets. that's too bad 'cause from what i've seen they made some neat stuff. and it is pretty clear that neither centuri nor estes exist as independent companies any more - estes is the brand name of a line of products from a company called cox. the centuri name seems dead - it hasn't been applied to a rocket, no matter who designed it, for some time.

That's exactly what I said....except I used about 1/4 of the words. ;)

As for it fading away, I'm sure you know that Estes actually became the Centuri corporation on paper due to tax benefits in Phoenix.

that was my point - the name may still be around for some business reason, but what made the company great is long gone.

Technically, yes. But the service, quality, cool designs, etc. that made both Centuri and Estes great is still alive in Fliskits, Semroc, Sirrus, Shrox, BMS and a handful of other small rocket companies. It's just on a much smaller scale. :cool:

i couldn't agree more - i love fliskits and semroc and need to check out some of the others. it's nice to know that the hole that was left when estes "went corporate" has been filled.

I've never understood why Estes-Cox who owns all the rights to the Centuri product line has never bothered to come out with a line of Old-new Centuri rockets like they do with their older Estes rockets. Anybody have any insights into this conundrum?

terry dean

Yeah....I have insight into that conundrum....it's called hideously poor management and greed above satisfying loyal decades long customers.

i've got another answer - it's called ignorant and too lazy to get educated. if it was just greed they would bring back the centuri catalog - 1000's of BARs would be tripping over themselves to get these kits at any reasonable price, and they'd spark a new interest in the younger crowd who haven't ever seen this kind of exciting design.

My Mom worked as an office assistant at Damon back in the day. I think I remember them having something to do with Interferon. One day she grabbed a catalog off a table at work and brought it home to me, and that's how I got started. She also got an employee discount which was nice. I think I must have gone over that catalog until it disintegrated. I should get myself a replacement someday.

One word -- eBay. :)
I've found a number of old catalogs from my youth. The one I just cannot seem to ante up enough for is a '64. I was up to about $120, as I recall, and got considerably outbid by a couple people in the final few seconds (probably fellow YORF members!). Afterwards, I actually felt some relief that I lost, thinking it was insane to pay that much. But, I still feel that I've got to get that one someday - it was my first Estes catalog.

One of the Damon-era catalogs can be found in great shape at reasonable prices if you just keep watching.

IMHO, none of the management are "model rocket" people, or were "rocketeers" in their youth. Their passion is making a good return for the company. They do not think like us, there is no passion for bringing back the products of old. We see bits of hope, like the Interceptors release last year, but that to me seems like a fluke, a rogue in the company (roguepink?) that helped push thru such a wild idea. There is probably nobody at Estes other than Christine who recalls the glory days, and that was for Estes products. It is hard to imagine anyone there understanding or caring anything about the Centuri family of products.

Fortunately, we have Semroc and others helping us relive the dream.

I made the mistake of just looking at a PDF of one after I made that last post. The mental "To be cloned" list exploded. I had to look away. So little time, so many cool rockets... :(

They way I understand it: "Because corporate tax laws are reputedly more favorable in Arizona than they are in Colorado, Centuri became the phantom parent company of Estes, and any associated company, like Cox in the post-Damon days . Much of the Estes and Cox literature of the past couple years even says "Centuri Corporation" on it."

More Centuri Corp./Estes info.: http://www.answers.com/topic/centuri-1

Then, in 2002, Barry Tunick and two others bought the company from TCW, renaming it Estes-Cox Corporation.

so now we know the entire history of Estes Industries,Inc and Centuri Enginneering,inc

1958-1969 Owned By Vern Estes first was Estes Enterprises then Estes Industries,Inc

was Estes Enterprises up to around late 1959 early 1960

1961-1970 Centuri Engineering.Inc owned by Lee Piester

1969-1989 Owned by Damon Corp.

1970-1983 approx. Centuri Engineering owned also by Damon Corp.

1989-1990 approx owned by NOAMD Partners LLC

1990-2002 Owned by TCW named Centuri Corp.

2002-Currently Owned by Barry Tunick et al Named Estes-Cox Corp.

and don't forget that Vern Estes stayed on at Estes Industries in various capacaties till around 1984 amd Lee Piester stayed at CEI till around 74-75.

terry dean

cool, thanks guys, this explains a lot! sounds like vern must have retired a rich man. i wonder what the annual revenue of cox/estes is these days?

Vern had other business ventures and investments also.

I've just finished reading all the Centuri catalogs over at http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/rockets/rockets.html and from what I saw of the their lineup (Centuri was before my time but I had older friends who were VERY loyal to Centuri) other than the licensed products like the Evel Knievel, Space 1999, and Buck Rogers ships, most of their more interesting stuff, like their early 70's space shuttle (back when it was based on Max Faget's design with straight wings and fully reusable liquid flyback booster, before the Air Force partnership forced it to become delta winged), is available from Semroc...

As for what Shreadvector said, yes, technically correct, but like joecooler I don't personally care about all the business semantics of who really owns who and 'they did this for that tax benefit' and all that jazz... go read the last Centuri catalog, it's a complete departure from their previous catalogs, virtually identical to the Estes Catalog of the same time period, obviously produced by the same printer, and the following year the Centuri products disappeared. You can't buy a Centuri ANYTHING that was manufactured after 1983, so for most of us in the unwashed masses, we equate that with being 'out of business' or absorbed since 83. Estes DOES still use SOME old Centuri size stuff (BT-56 being the most notable one that comes to mind). Estes is still producing stuff under their name, even though they're owned by Cox or whatever. Cox also used to make model rockets, but are 'gone' now too, in that there aren't any Cox branded MR products anymore. Estes also bought up North Coast Rocketry, which was a pretty big name in M/HPR back in the late 80's (when I was in high school us rocket nerds LOVED their catalogs because they had some HOT chicks displaying their rockets:) Estes bought them out after I was out of rocketry in tech school, but from what I've read Estes didn't keep the NCR products going for too long before they 'faded away' too.

Sorry tbzep if I'm long winded... sometimes too much information to convey, and I've been trained to be very precise in my communication.. :)

OL JR :)

PS. I'd add Dr. Zooch to that list of cottage industry innovators that has the 'old Estes spirit" lacking in the big corporate world... :) OL JR :)

Ok here's a question for the historians amongst us...

How come about halfway thru the Centuri catalogs over on ninfinger the greeting page, which was always signed "Lee" (Lee Piester) suddenly changed to "Grant Boyd"?? Did Lee sell off Centuri or turn it over to someone else, as I also notice a slight but distinct change in the 'production qualities' of the catalog and product lines about the same time.

The catalogs are all signed "Grant" or "Grant Boyd" until the next to last one just before the "Estes" Centuri catalog in 83 I think.

Interesting stuff... :) OL JR :)

Could it be because Lee Piester left Centuri in 74-75 to become a stockbroker and that "Melville" Garnt Boyd stayed behind to run Centuri till 1983? Dane Bolss of Estes Industries was partner to Bill Stine in 1991 when they started Quest Aeerospace and today Dane Boles runs Model Aerospace Co. LLC. http://www.modelaerospace.com/

EDIT The above was edited . I got Grant Boyd and Dane Boles mixed up.

terry dean

Well, he sold partly with exchange of stock. He'll probably tell you it wasn't as good a deal as he originally thought it was going to be. You can go to his website -- http://www.vernestes.com -- and read some interviews with him and his wife, Gleda.

also go to http://www.questaerospace.com/museum for more info about G. Harry Stine and Orville Carlisle.

You can often find Estes/Centuri catalogs at NARAM auctions. I've been the winning bidder several times. :D

NARAM-50 had several Estes/Centuri catalogs from the 1960s up for bid. I was interested in a 1963 Centuri catalog but dropped out after the bidding went past $110. The 'winner' bid $175.

I picked up an Estes 1964 catalog at NARAM-34. It was hand carried to NARAM by Mary Roberts herself. Mary told me that the catalog had been found in an old file at the Estes plant. The catalog was pristine and even had it's mailing wrapper.

I outbid several other people (I think it was Dave Cook and Bob Kaplow) for the catalog. Vern Estes signed the mailing wrapper afterwards.

Bob

so what'd it cost you to be the "winner" of the '64 catalog ... ?! :eek:

I just got a "nicer" '66 catalog and may put my previous copy up for auction. Also got a fairly mint '73 for fairly cheap.

I now have almost a complete collection of my Early Years Estes and Centuri catalogs (the 66 Estes are extras, my first Estes catalog was a 67)

I'm missing a 68 Centuri, 70 Centuri, and 74 Estes, though of those, only the 68 Centuri is a must. The 70 Centuri was more of a magazine, and the 74 Estes I paid scant attention to as I was on my way out of the hobby for the first time.

Actually, they were the target of an LBO (leveraged buy out). The LBO model at the time said "find business without a lot of debt but steady cash flow from stable businesses, then buy out the company using debt." When done properly, it was a very successful business model.

At the time, I tried getting First Chicago Venture Capital to bid on the company, and did get a copy of the prospectus. A very interesting document.

Last bit of trivia: the LBO that eventually came out of the Damon - Nomad struggle was the last deal done by Drexel Burhan Lambert, Mike Milken's old firm.

LOL! I think I would have used just as many words on that reply. :p

But wasn't the LBO initiated by that group of managers (essentially similar to what Barry Tunick did with TCW in 2002 --though that was probably much friendlier and more cooperative!)?

Ok I have a related question....

I'm reading the old Estes catalogs, currently on the 1979 catalog, and it lists "Starship Vega" as a 'NEW' kit, but it's listed a few years earlier in the "CITATION" catalog by Estes... which also fits with certain rockets being called the "Citation (rocket name here)" IE "Citation Patriot" that is a popular clone...

SO, question is, was "Citation" another firm Estes absorbed along the way, or a different name/line sold seperately from the Estes line, kinda like some of the stuff I noticed in the late FSI catalogs that were the same product sold under a different company name...

Thanks for any info... I find the history of model rocketry fascinating, and I'm really enjoying seeing how things progressed by reading all the old catalogs over at ninfinger's site...

TIA! OL JR :)

The Citation product line (Along with the Centuri 'Stellar' Series) was an attempt by Estes to get model rocketry products into mass-merchandiser outlets (Woolworths, etc.). These products were all sold in boxes (No kits in bags) and simplified motor designations (A-3, B-4, C-5).

It was not successful.

Estes ran at least one ad in their Model Rocket News advertising the availability of the products (Left-over stock). I knew of several hobby shops which sold the Citation line, also.

All five Citation kits (Quasar, Red Max, Patriot, Starship Vega and Bomarc) were later release as regular, hobby shop products in bags with minor changes. I guess that's how they could be called 'new'. ;)

Bob

The Patriot and Red Max were sold pretty much as they were, except for maybe replacing the black injection molded noses of the original with white blow-molded noses (the recent re-issue of the Red Max goes Back To Black!).

The Citation Bomarc was designed to glide, ejecting a pod with a heavy nose, not unlike the current Cosmos Mariner. The later Bomarc simply ejected a parachute.

One of the "selling points" of the Citation Quasar was its chrome-plated parts (came with a chrome-plated Porta Pad as well!). The later Quasars had non-plated, white parts.

Finally the Starship Vega had a number of changes to simplify it.