WOW Estes Saros Kit Skill Level Packaging
 

Hard to believe the price that was paid for this kit! Wow!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT

lucky guy (the seller, that is). Though it does have the rarest of plastic parts, it isn't in Citation packaging. Now *that* I could see going for a couple hundred. For this I wouldn't have blinked had I seen $125-150 or so.

What are the rare plastic parts, Roy? The nose cone and fin can?

I'm not a BAR (even though I'm the right age to be one) and I've only been into model rocketry since 2004, so I wouldn't pay a whole lot, say more than $50 - $75 tops, for any vintage OOP rocket kit, but it's interesting to see what things go for.

There were only 5 Citation packaged kits;
the Saros was not one of them.
You would never see it packaged as such.
Unlike the Patriot, Bomarc, Quasar, Der Red Max, Starship Vega which came in both types of packaging.

I couldve sworn that was one of them.

yes, those and the transition, though it was merely a plastic version of an existing balsa part. And SEMROC makes a spot-on version of the nosecone, minus the little stub things.

And you're right about the worth to someone who wasn't interested in it for the nostalgia factor.

It had those and a plastic transition section, IIRC. It shared all three components with the Estes Nomad, #1344, which came out around 1980. I had a Nomad and still have the nosecone and transition section for future Saros cloning, but unfortunately the fin can was lost to a tree. :(

I still have the Saros I built ~ 1975 or 1976. The plastic pieces are unusual for Estes, because they are two-piece, like plastic airplane model parts (with the little alignment pins that go into matching holes).

I just cannot bring myself to fly this again, it has been maybe 10 years or so..

The parts were available through the 1974 Custom Parts Catalog. This is the entry and drawing of the parts from that catalog.

I too would love a Saros - it was one of my favorite designs back when I first flew in 73. As with so many other models, though, I just couldn't afford more than a handful of rockets then. I'd love to clone this one at some point.

I remember this rocket well, even though I did not get mine until around 84, long after it went OOP. It was on the very back of a display peg and quite cheap, likely still with its final price. While not a glider, I was drawn to the coolness of those plastic parts, which I immediantly recognized as also being on the NOMAD.

The NOMAD used full lengths of BT20 and 50, and this sort of 'washed out' the overall appearance. The Saros looked much better, and you gotta admit the roll pattern and decals were fine. Especially the little 'loaded' one and the chromy fin base squares. Not to mention the roll pattern which makes any rocket POP eyewise.

Same place had a BUTTLOAD of old OOP Estes kits even in 85 or so, with most of these being mid to late 70s models. I also got my grubby mitts on the LTV Scout (for the same reasons as the Saros, cool plastic parts and decals), the Vostok, another SkyDart (which promptly glided into the power plant), Wolverine, Solar Sailer, OLD packaged OT, and more. Also had a large tub of *diamond pack* as well as *blue tube* motors from the early 70s, and mostly the cool flavors like 1/4A3-1 18mm standards, A5s (both shortys and full length), B14s, and all the nonstandard booster motors you guys drool for.....all for $1/pak. Yep, you know where my money went back then......

If you had a time machine and set it for 1984 and hit this place......good grief, for $250 back then youd have enough stuff to Ebay today for gobs of money. Oh yeah, did I mention the Citation boxed kits for $4 each that NO ONE ever seemed to buy????