View Single Post
  #6  
Old 12-01-2011, 12:23 AM
Earl's Avatar
Earl Earl is offline
Apollo Nut
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 4,893
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by rokitflite
Great deal seeing as one in the same condition went for over $400 a few days ago. It looks 100% complete and is of a "newer" vintage judging by the parackute. I also has the Estes label in the corner of the box that covered up the original $19.95 price tag that was printed on the box. Lastly, the pictures don't show it, but there are probably small triangular gussets where the mechanism tray meets the base of the transition. This was added later on and provided much more strength at that joint.


Thanks Scott for your response. Yes, I thought it was a pretty good deal at the time, but when that other one a week or so ago that you referred to on ebay (in the same condition) went for over $400, I felt VERY fortunate on this one.

The applied Estes logoed sticker on the box over the original box-printed price was a clue to me that it was not produced in the first couple years (I think the price stayed at $19.95 the first two years the Cineroc was out). And that orange and white parachute is from no earlier than the early 70s....whenever Estes got away from the 'checkerboard' parachutes.

I did recall in an American Spacemodeling (NAR mag) article here a few years ago (I dug that issue back out a few days ago) where Mike Dorfler recounted the development of the Cineroc and I think in that article he talks about those beefed up gussets being added to the frame just a few months into production of the Cineroc because folks were breaking the camera frame just inserting it into the nosecone/shroud assembly. This unit features the gussets.

Based on the product number printed on that box label, it appears to be a pre-1975 unit best I can tell, since the '75 and '76 catalogs show a four digit product number for the Cineroc by then.

Otherwise, the unit appears pristine from what I can tell. I suspect when I put those two new N cells in the unit here about a week or so ago and turned it on (it ran!!!), that's probably the first time it had been run since it left the factory, seeing as how the original film flight pak (with batteries) had never been opened. The parachute was still sealed, the battery tester was still on it's paper directions slip, shock cord unused. No sign at all that it had ever been 'cranked up'. The only 'issue' there was at all with the contents was that the manual was folded over in 'quads' and not in the nice, neat factory form it was originally.

The only thing I have not yet 'opened' is the film cartridge itself. I'll eventually do that when I get ready to start doing some experimenting with film reloading and such after I decide which will be the best current-day film stock to try to use in it. Kodak still makes several Super 8 stocks and I think one of them may work ok. Still need to do some further research though.

Thanks for your feedback Scott. I think someone posted in an earlier thread that you probably would know a thing or two about the Cinerocs.


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

Rocket-Brained Since 1970
Reply With Quote