Bait and switch.
The Gemini program climaxed in 1966, so everyone knew about it. Get your attention to get you to buy Centuri over the competitors!

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I love sanding.

Hi Earl, this Javelin Kit has the Balsa nose cone, I had a lot of old Kits, I sold most of my collections a couple of years back,
I had the Same Arcon from the mid 1960 with the old blue header card, as well as a Honest John with the Yellow Header Card with orange writing. the kits that I had where from the same source as the the kits that are in the Smithsonian. As far as plastic nose cone go, I think that the change to the plastic nose cone came at the end of 1970 when
Centuri changed the package color to a green back ground on the Javelin, I still have about
3-4 Javelins that are built but can not tell the very early ones apart. The Javelin was the first kit
that I ever built Christmas Eve 1966, I flew it Christmas day with the old stile A8-3 engines.
I still love model rocketry by my health makes it hard for me.

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Neal Miller
Master Blaster NAR# 58296

Here is an early 70's Javelin and it has a plastic nose cone (this particular one from around '73, with the addition of the 'Spec Plate'). Centuri apparently developed their first wave of plastic nose cones in late 1969 and into early 1970 and then, as you said, started using them in kits around late summer or early fall of 1970. I've got a few transitional versions of kits that were first issued with balsa cones and then went to plastic, like the Quasar, the Space Shuttle, Laser-X, and the Orion. Getting 'balsa' versions of each of those took a while, especially for the Orion, Space Shuttle, and Quasar as all three of those were first released in 1970 and were not out long before they were switched to balsa cones.

I am sorry that health difficulties make things a challenge for you, but hope you are still able to enjoy the hobby on some level. If you need instructions or templates or such from any of those old kits, let me know.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

The 1971 Estes catalog was the first I ever owned. As a ten year old kid it just didn’t get any better than this with the actual built rockets displayed on planets and the cool backgrounds. To me, that was slick!

http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...1/711est46.html

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Steve Naquin
TRA# 677 L2
NAR# 85518 L2
SAM# 0052

🚀 In Construction: Der Blue Maxx/Minie-Magg 5.5” & Vander-Burn MDRM Clone w/Stickershock23 Custom Decals
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🚀 Stay Tuned For Fall 2021 Launch Dates

Me too--for me, catalogs (and books) that contain hand-drawn illustrations and diagrams are more remarkable and memorable. The "too perfect" publications give me an "If you've seen one, you've seen them all" feeling, because there is nothing distinctive or special about them. For example:

I have the 1982 Golden Press "Sky Guide" by Mark R. Chartrand. (It's formatted like a birdwatchers' book [and even has a moisture-resistant vinyl soft cover, for outdoor use], but is written for astronomy enthusiasts. More recently, it has been reprinted--again with a moisture-resistant vinyl soft cover [and in a slightly larger size] by St Martin's Press--as "Night Sky: A Guide To Field Identification" [see: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Se...Sky+Guide&isbn= ].) Now:

Instead of using super-slick, computer-generated graphics and/or photographs to illustrate the principles and techniques involved (although it does contain ^some^ photographs, mostly of the Moon, planets, etc.), it is full of paintings by Helmut K. Wimmer (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Wimmer ), who was the Official Artist of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City (he also illustrated many astronomy, physics, and other science books, including the 1960s - early 1970s "Vistas of Science" series books). I can remember and picture all of his "depictive" paintings (such as his photo-realistic painting of a bright fireball meteor that he saw at dusk in New Jersey) and his illustrative paintings (which show why meteors' paths and radiants appear as they do, how Declination and Right Ascension work, why every observer has a unique viewing meridian, zenith, and nadir, and so on), and:

Similarly, the old Centuri and Estes catalogs (and the latter's yellow pages "The Estes Model Rocketry Manual" sections, see: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/estesmrm.html [the Centuri Flight Manual http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/79cen044.html , in their old catalogs, is also of this ilk]), with their hand-drawn illustrations (which were constructively combined with moderate numbers of photographs and paintings), are also illustrative of the principles involved, and depict the kits well. G. Harry Stine remarked--in his "Handbook of Model Rocketry"--that top-notch product development people created that "presentation format" (my term), so that adults and children who had never seen the equipment before would readily understand--from the visual depictions and the text--how to build it, and how everything works. Today's slickly-done, computer-generated illustrations do show the same things, but being unremarkable, they don't stick in my mind as the hand-drawn ones--combined with judicious amounts of photographs--do.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

There's good slick (distinctive slick), and there's *too* slick (so slick that a catalog, book, or product becomes unremarkable via aesthetic sameness--today's "look-alike" cars [not all are, but many are that way] are another example of this), and:

While I'd seen earlier Estes (and Centuri) catalogs before their 1971 one came out (Centuri's 1971 catalog is also noticeably aesthetically different from previous ones: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca.../71dcencat.html , although their 1972 one "went all color": http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/72cencat.html ), I found--and still find--the 1971 Estes catalog a refreshing, yet not "presentation format over-turning" (not *too* slick) variation of their basic theme. Also:

The 1971 Estes catalog, if memory serves, offered the largest-ever variety of motors, as that was the 18 mm Series III S "Shorty" motors / 13 mm T "Tiny" mini motors transition period, plus it was the catalog which introduced the Mini-Brute kits (I wish Estes would resume using that product line name, and its stylized "June Bug" Mini-Brute decal in those kits) that use 13 mm mini motors. The 1971 Centuri catalog also offered more motor types (Regular, "Shorty," Mini-Max, *and* Enerjet) and kits than previous or subsequent catalogs of theirs.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

I wish we could get all the motors that Centuri offered back in 1971, and at those prices !
With the exception of the 24mm D from Estes not being in their lineup, it would fulfill 99% of what I would use. Especially with the 29mm Mini-Max and Enerjet offerings.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

That 1971 Centuri catalog, which I received by way of an ad in the back of Boy’s Life magazine in late 1970, was my very first rocketry catalog. Still have it, though it is veeeeeerrry worn now. But yes, it had quite the spread of products, from starter kits and such, all the nice scale models they carried, and up to the big Mini Max kits and motors and also introduced the Enerjets!

My budget at the time, along with my scout buddy, focused on the Lil Herc at 75 cents! Alas, never got it then as my folks felt that, at 8 years old, I was a bit too young for rockets. Mom was not well, even then, and Dad did not always have time to spend with us kids, so a ‘son and dad’ gig was not in the cards.

But six years later at age 13 I just announced I was getting a rocket set and dad drove me across town one Saturday to a discount wholesale store (located right across the street from the Augusta National Golf Course, for the golf fans out there) and I got my Centuri Screaming Eagle rocket set and a 6v lantern battery for it with money I had saved. Made the first launch the next day, D-Day of 1976 and exactly four weeks to the day before the Bicentennial that year. Fun memories.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

First, I agree about the catalogs being too slick. I loved the catalogs from the mid-60s to early 70s.

Now, about that paint for the refigerator. That brought back a funny memory. When I graduated from college, we moved to California and the first place we rented needed a refrigerator. The stove and dishwasher were Avocado Green (1976). We went to Sears and bought a brand new Avocado Green refrigerator. Several months later I was transferred to Northern California and we rented a home. It had Harvest Gold appliances. My wife introduced herself to a retired neighbor with a truck, and charmed him into hauling that green refrigerator to an auto body shop. They put a custom Harvest Gold paint job on it. They even airbrushed highlights around the door handles and trim in the darker gold. Was maybe the most beautiful refrigerator we have ever seen.

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Lee Reep
NAR 55948

Projects: Semroc Saturn 1B, Ken Foss Designs Mini Satellite Interceptor
In the Paint Shop: Nothing! Too cold!
Launch-Ready: Farside-X, Maxi Honest John, Super Scamp

We'd never see someone do that today. They'd just buy a new fridge!

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I love sanding.