On my recent excursion to WalMart the other day in York SC I found the following Estes items.

Gone are the clam shell packaging, in it's place are cardboard packages, both kits and starter sets, they had an assortment of kits for $9.99.

Also, I picked up 5 packs of motors , C6-3's and C6-7's for only $3.00 per pack, and this was not discounted, it was the shelf price.

And, once again, WalMaart had done a reset for the summer, along with Valentines Day and even Easter items..............

We've always had cardboard packages for all but the RTF stuff.

The cardboard boxed versions of the Rascal and Hijinks are showing up down here in Mobile. Up until recently they were still in the clamshells.

I've also seen the new WM version of the "Experimenter's Special" (or whatever it's being called). It's a bunch of pre-wrapped tubes with some plastic fin units and nose cones for ~$25.

(In a Ben Stine voice) I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it...

__________________
Craig McGraw

BARCLONE Rocketry -- http://barclone.rocketshoppe.com
BARCLONE Blogsite -- http://barclone.wordpress.com
BARCLONE Forum -- BARCLONE Forum

BARs helping BARs

SAM 0044
AMA 352635

You better check aagain.
The starter sets came in pastic "clam shells", and the smaller kits came in "diamond shaped" plastic boxes. (launchables)

It has just been recently that Estes has chanaged their packaging from plastic back to cardboard.

Most of the Estes kit were in plastic bags with a single hole for placing on peg hooks. There have been boxes over the years in different sizes and shapes.

The current boxes at WM are great to be recycled.

All I can say is to check them out.........

At $3 a pack, I'd have picked more than five! Ten is a nice round number, innit?

The West Coast Wal*Marts seem to be selling motor packs for $4.97 with single stages motors A8 through C6. Come to think of it, there were a few mini-motors available, too.

The good news is that I seem to be the only Wal*Mart customer buying motors in my neck of the woods...er, palms.

__________________
Kit (aka Cranky Kong)

I'm just a roadie for the banned...

What's the scoop with Walmart and Estes motors?? Are ALL W/M's carrying them, just regionally, or what?? I was in our local W/M the other day and 3 different 'starter sets' but no motors-- didn't even see any shelf space for motors. I read somewhere that WM's in some areas aren't even carrying motors anymore... so what gives?? Any experiences/ideas here appreciated. PS we're in SE TX near Houston...

OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

The Wal-mart's up here are all carrying motors again, for $4.95 a pack. Not bad, considering . . .

Jeff, I went to the Wal - Mart at Westview/Belt Way 8 several weeks back and they had those boxed rockets and starter sets along with A10-3T's, A8-3's, B4-4's and B6-4's; likewise,
all the other Wal - Marts in my area have the rockets but NO engines whatsoever, so I don't know what the deal is. Read somewhere in one of these forums that the engines were being pulled from the WM shelves due to some "safety" issue(s). BTW, the Westview store's engines were priced $4.97 per pack.

__________________
Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.

I was just in the Walmart in Plattsburgh, NY today, and I saw that they had the boxes that RD was talking about. Two or three different boxed models, or pairs of models (I didn't notice if they were launch sets or not) plus the Rascals and Hijinks also in boxes.

And..... Glory be!

DISCOUNTED MOTORS!!!

At long last. These were marked on the shelf as being $3/pack. Huzzah! There was just a small box of them though, containing nothing but C6-3's and C6-5's.

I think that the large flat cardboard boxes with the splashy color graphics all make the products stand out more when they sit on the lowest shelf, which is where they are usually located. In the clamshell packs, the package would taper from the base to the top. When they were stood up on the bottom shelf, this would cause the packaging to angle back away from the edge of the shelf. When you were standing in the aisle, looking down, the product would jusr recede away and be hidden under the shelves above it. With the flat-front cardboard boxes, all of the packaging's graphics are right up at the front edge of the shelf where they are very prominent and easy to see. They really seemed to pop when I saw them today.

Mark \\.

__________________
SAM # 0011

I purchased all of the motors that they had, other than four packs of A10-3T's, which, many WM's end up with from their master packs.

I rearranged the shelves to match the shelf tags, and, the rockets were on the bottom shelf, and the motors were behind the kits, but, I searched and found and purchased.

I don't know what is going on with motors, I can only guess that Estes might be coming out with a different selection of motors for a "master pack" and that WM is selling off what they have. It makes no sense to have the kits without the motors.

At least they have kits now, that's a positive.