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Old 11-30-2011, 09:07 PM
Earl's Avatar
Earl Earl is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2006
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Default Cineroc: It Only Took 35 Years

Besides the Centuri 1/45th Little Joe II, the other 'way out of reach dream' of my childhood days was to have and fly an Estes Cineroc. Though I had been a Centuri fan since the very early 70's, I did not get my first Estes catalog until the 76-1 catalog, wherein I saw the Cineroc (I have since found out that was the last catalog to feature the camera; it was dropped for the 76-2 catalog).

Alas, it was way out my price range at the time. Later on in the late 80s and into the early 90s I flew video cameras on some of my high power flights on G through K motors, and have viewed many other's rocket-borne footage in the years since that has been simply spectacular (e.g., Gates Brothers, etc.).

Still, I always wanted to one day obtain a Cineroc.

Several weeks ago one appeared on eBay, with a slight 'name' twist in the auction title: the seller had it listed as a 'Cinerco' model rocket movie camera. That little mis-spelling would turn out to be fortuitous, as the auction closed with only three bidders and a final selling price of just $107.

The auction photos seemed to show a complete unit, best I could tell, but the seller was apparently uninitiated in model rocketry in general, so the photos were not as complete as one would might like. Still, it looked very clean in the photos and the final selling price seemed pretty reasonable.

After the shipment arrived here a couple weeks ago and I unpacked it, I believe it to be a totally complete AND never flown Cineroc.

I *think* everything is there, and the film pak was still sealed. The only thing I could not find intially was the Cineroc decal, but it 'fell out' of the folded manual when I started going through and unfolding its pages.

But, I wanted to post it here and get any information from those who are much more initiated in Cineroc knowledge and ask two things, based on the attached photos of the unit and its contents:

(1) Does this appear to be complete?

(2) Is there any way to determine what vintage this unit may be?


As for question 2, there are a few clues I've run down at this point. I don't believe it is an 'early' unit, as the box top has an 'applied' Estes label over what used to be the box-printed original price of $19.95. So, it is not in the first year or two of issue. Secondly, in that same photo attached showing the applied box sticker, the sticker shows a catalog # 701-CM-8. From what I can tell looking back at older Estes catalogs, this catalog number was used for the Cineroc through the 1974 catalog. In 1975, Estes used a four digit catalog number. So from that I would deduce this unit is from around the '72-'74 timeframe, but am not sure.

Believe it or not, the film pack batteries, which only showed very minor corrosion when I opened the pack, still registered voltage. They were not enerjetic enough to run the camera (no surprise), but a trip to Radio Shack a few days later snagged a couple of fresh N cells and those DID fire that little motor up just fine.

It is my eventual plan to reload the flight pak with fresh film (researching that now, along with available film stocks, developers to handle the short film lengths, etc.) and get at least a flight or two on the camera with sucessful film footage, just to 'enjoy' the full vintage Cineroc experience. But all that will take a while to accomplish and available time is pretty slim these days.

However, f you have any info on original kit contents or other ways of determining vintage, I'd appreciate comments.


Earl
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