stupid question

[joecool]

So I'm starting to get into (and get obsessed with!) collecting old kits. I haven't paid any stupid expensive prices yet, but I've paid $30-$40 for a few old kits. One of my justifications to myself is that I can always recover this in future if I decide to sell them - and maybe even make a profit!

Then a horrible thought occurred to me - what if demand for these old kits actually wanes? What if, as the old rocketeers die, no one cares any more about the early history of the hobby? Instead of increasing or at least maintaining their value, my expensive collection might be worth nothing at all!

So here's the stupid question, which is stupid of course because no one can predict the future, but I'm curious as to your thoughts anyway:

Where is the collecting of old kits headed? Do you think it will remain a vibrant subset of the rocketry community? Or will it die off and the value of the old kits go to 0?

Eagerly awaiting your prognostications,

Joe

[tbzep]

I think the value will remain until all us old rocket folks start dieing off. The younger generation doesn't see any value in them.

[ghrocketman]

I don't think the value of the collectible kits will start dropping until the people that got into model rocketry in the 60's and 70's start dying off in large numbers.
I seriously doubt the values will drop much before 2040 or so, if ever.

[joecool]

so it sounds like you guys are echoing my suspicion - that the value of the old kits is mostly nostalgia of the folks who were there when they were new. the kits don't have intrinsic value as a record of the early days of the hobby. that would suggest that for someone like me, who doesn't have the nostalgia, buying kits just to hold 'em (and not build 'em) for posterity is probably a fruitless exercise, 'cause posterity doesn't want 'em!

[tbzep]

so it sounds like you guys are echoing my suspicion - that the value of the old kits is mostly nostalgia of the folks who were there when they were new. the kits don't have intrinsic value as a record of the early days of the hobby. that would suggest that for someone like me, who doesn't have the nostalgia, buying kits just to hold 'em (and not build 'em) for posterity is probably a fruitless exercise, 'cause posterity doesn't want 'em!


If you plan to hold them long term and expect the value to increase like a real GT-40 or Shelby Cobra, I agree that it's not likely to be fruitful. If you'd like to grab some and turn them over for a profit in a few years when they become harder to find, go for it. I have a few kits saved, some sealed, some opened so that I could clone them before we got the online resources we have today. I have only built one of my vintage kits, the Interceptor. Within a few weeks of me opening the bag, I found out that Estes was reissuing it. :mad:

[Rocket Doctor]

The current Interceptor is nothing like the original.....look at it that way.
Right now, the value of kits, even the older ones on ebay are not the same as a year ago, why, the economy.

The hobby has been around for 50 years now, and, I don't think that saving the older kits would be foolish, on the contrary, if a "model rocket museum" were looking to fill out their collection, then, you could donate them, sell them or at least let them borrow them with the understanding that they would come back to you.

The Smithsonian has a good collection of rockets from the Stine collection housed in the garber Facility in Maryland, which will eventually be move over to the Dulles facility.

Look at it this way, Why do we have museums..........to protect the past for future generations.

[joecool]

cool - what's the stine collection? sounds like something i need to take my boys to when we visit DC

[Race58]

Or you could just build them and fly them all. ;)
If you don't want to do that then you could just send all to everybody here and them you don't have to worry anymore:D

[tbzep]

The current Interceptor is nothing like the original.....look at it that way.


Close enough that I wouldn't have opened my vintage kit if I had known the re-issue was coming out. My son built his re-issue using toothpicks instead of the plastic things so there are only a few small noticeable differences with mine. Off the top of my head, without looking at the two....

1. His re-issue blow molded pod tips aren't even with the leading edge of the wing and cant be adjusted easily due to the TTW mounting method.
2. The new pods are a bit fatter than the old pods.
3. The new decals have subtle differences in shade, especially the yellow parts.
4. The new decals have a "recommended engines" decal added.
5. There are a couple of different lines in the nosecone along with slightly different gun port indentions.

These aren't noticeable unless my vintage kit is sitting beside his and you are looking fairly closely. IMHO, of course. :)

[luke strawwalker]

cool - what's the stine collection? sounds like something i need to take my boys to when we visit DC

G. Harry Stine, co-founder of the hobby of model rocketry. (with Orville Carlisle, a hobby pyrotechnician/shoe store salesman who invented the black powder pre-fab model rocket engine) G. Harry was also instrumental in forming the NAR and was it's first president, and working with/thru NFPA to get model rocketry differentiated legally from fireworks, a large undertaking to make model rocketry 'legal' in more areas of the country. G. Harry Stine started the first commercial model rocket company, Model Missiles Inc., and sold kits and "handmade" Carlisle engines until a young man named Vern Estes invented a machine named "mabel" to produce model rocket engines with great speed and efficiency. Shortly thereafter, Vern struck out with his own company and the rest is history. G. Harry also wrote what is generally considered to be the "bible" of model rocketry, the venerable "HANDBOOK OF MODEL ROCKETRY" which is in it's seventh or eighth revision currently, IIRC, currently revised by his son, Bill Stine, who owns/runs Quest, the other big model rocket company behind Estes.

Hope this helps:) OL JR :)

[Doug Sams]

Where is the collecting of old kits headed? Do you think it will remain a vibrant subset of the rocketry community? Or will it die off and the value of the old kits go to 0?I think it's like everything else. (MNSHO) That is, the overall trend will be for increasing value - like most things antiquish in nature - but there will be oscillations in the short term. Things will heat up and cool off periodically thus causing values to go up and down, but long term I think the old kits (sealed, NIB, etc) will continue to accrue value.

While the 60's rocketeers are approaching the knee of the curve, there are still new rocketeers out there who care about the past. The fact that they are fewer in number can affect demand negatively. OTOH, with a new generation, many of these OOP kits will then be another 20-25 years oldER which should affect the demand positively.

IOW, there may be fewer buyers, but they'll be bidding on rarer items. So I think the overall trend will be positive. (Just like the stock market, eh?)

The thing to avoid is buying during short term peaks. For example, various outside events will affect participation in the hobby and thus affect demand for old stuff. In my case, the movie October Sky rekindled my interest, and when I came back I was mightily bummed to learn that A8-0's, B14's and 1/100 Sat 1B's weren't just sitting idly on the shelf patiently waiting for my return. Alas, unlike 1971, I had the money but Estes no longer had the products :( So I've had to pony up some bucks for some of this stuff.

Anyway, I've seen some fluctuations, and I think similar sorts of events will continue to impact the market. But overall, I expect the values to continue increasing.


Doug

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[scigs30]

I have never bought an OOP kit for the purpose of collecting and selling some day, I think there are better ways to make money. I enjoy opening up a sealed OOP and putting it together and watching it fly. This means a lot more to me than collecting to have a bag of balsa, cardboard and paper sitting in a closet. As far as cost goes, there are not too many sports or hobbies where you get your money back. Yes you could spend up to 3000 or 5000 dollars collecting a lot of vintage new in bag Estes kits, but to me the satisfaction of building the kit is worth it. If you just want to build OOP kits and fly them, why not clone them? Much cheaper and easier to get. I got back into rocketry because I was wasting my money on meaningless weekend adventures. I sold off my desert toys and began scaling back on my adventures. For me getting back into rocketry has saved me money. Some of the questions you should ask yourself before buying old kits is this, 1. Does the cost of a 50 to 100.00 model kit fit into my budget? 2. What am I going to do with this kit? 3. Do I want the satisfaction of owning and building the original or do I want to build a clone and modify to current building standards. I have a hobby room with my OOP kits built and I have a lot of satisfaction walking into the room and seeing them on display. My desert toys sat in storage where I could only see them a few times a year. I just got done flying some of my OOP kits and posted pictures in the Mission Control section. I firmly believe the only people interested in old kits are the fliers from the 60's 70's and 80's. I seriously doubt the kids of the 90's and today are going to want to collect old rockets. So if you want the OOP Estes kits, I say purchase them and build them, what else would you do with them in the future?

[joecool]

scigs, my interest isn't in trying to make money or have my hobby pay for itself. My interest in the old kits is in owning a piece of model rocket history. As a somewhat (or maybe VERY according to my wife!) obsessive person I also like collecting things, and the idea of building a complete collection of Estes rockets, or at least completing the early years, is appealing. There are very few things one might collect that you could actually collect ALL of, without spending millions!
So, I do enjoy collecting the older kits and just keeping them in the bag. And, as you say, I can build a clone and have the best of both worlds - the original to keep, and a clone to fly.
The reason for my question is, I'm not sure I do want to collect if it means paying thousands to create a collection that become worthless in a short time. If I am going to invest that kind of money I would like relatively high odds that I can recover a large portion of my investment if I need to/decide to move on. Make sense?
And by the way I'm inclined to agree with you - I think these old kits are really only valuable to the folks who used them back when. I suppose there will always be a few oddballs like me who are interested in the early days, and like collecting, but as cloning becomes easier and more popular the need to collect the actual kits will wane.
For my own part, I think rather than trying to collect ALL the old kits, I may just focus on a few of the early years, or kits that really flip my fancy. That way I can have a piece of history but not sink my life savings into it.

[scigs30]

Joecool, I don't think these rockets will decrease in value in a short time, but they possibly can over time. It is hard to tell what the young rocketeers will be interested in 20 years from now. I thought the same way you did, collect a few rockets from back in the day. I ended up collecting most of the 1979 catalog and them some. After all my finances are covered. I have a budgeted amount for rocketry, so as long as I stay within my means, I am happy. I really enjoy building the actual kit vs cloning, but that is me. I am also glad for companies like Semroc so that cloning is possible. When I collect a kit there are a couple of things I do before I build it. One is I order the clone parts from Semroc, this is so in the future if I want another I can build it. The next thing I do is scan the decal and duplicate it in Coreldraw. Then it is ready for print on my Alps printer. By the way, there is nothing wrong with being obsessive.

[Rustee]

What is it worth to actually find rare,collectable OOP kits you thought you'd never find and hold them in your hands? Priceless. Why,I might have to go fondle some right now...

[Initiator001]

What is it worth to actually find rare,collectable OOP kits you thought you'd never find and hold them in your hands? Priceless. Why,I might have to go fondle some right now...

Yup... ;)

Bob

[joecool]

What is it worth to actually find rare,collectable OOP kits you thought you'd never find and hold them in your hands? Priceless. Why,I might have to go fondle some right now...

'k, now yer just showing off ... !

btw, i found a guy at TRF who is selling me his silver comet kits ... so i guess dreams really do come true!

[scigs30]

I am off to open my next vintage build, I am thinking of the Honest John kit with the balsa nose. I am also going to build Semroc's Space plane at the same time. I am also ordering the new Orbital Transport from Semroc. I love this hobby, actually after all the running I did at yesterdays launch, one could call it a sport.

[LeeR]

I agree with all of you! :)

Actually, hobby collections are made for so many reasons. I agree with scigs from the standpoint of the thrill of opening and old kit, and reliving the memory of my youth by building it (grew up in the 60s, when Estes was new).

I also see joecool's point. I have a few kits I'd never build - one is an old MPC Vostok model that was sold as a PMC -- a plastic model that included the parts to make it a model rocket. A childhood friend had one, and I swore I'd own one evetually, and I did find one after 20+ years. It means more to me in the box, than it would to build it. I'm not sure I can say why, it just does.

Finally, thank goodness for Semroc and others that make it possible for anyone to own and build a number of rockets from this hobby's past.

[timorley]

I think there will always be some level of collectability for older kits regardless of the popularity of the hobby. I see lots of old memorabilia in other areas continue to sell and increase in value for things long gone or out of popularity. Overall collectability may have it's ups and downs with the hobby, but there will always be a market for the rare and hard to find.

I like to build clones and I like to build originals. And yes sometimes it's just plain cool to hold an old kit in my hands once again that I built as a child. That's nostalgia for you. When I pick originals up, I try for a reasonable price , well, reasonable to me, I try not to go too crazy, I have limits. I will pay a premium for an original versus a clone kit. But it also has to be an original kit I really like and want, I'll pass up older kits if I have no interest in the rocket. Most of the time I'm perfectly happy having a clone. Hard to clone parts sometimes comes into play or availability of plans to clone. I suppose I do have a few originals I may "collect" and never build so long as the means are available to clone them. I'll admit that sometimes I see a high price an original I have goes for and it does give me pause when I open the bag.

There is a preservation of history factor too in collecting. It's a personal choice, but I also think there are occasions to take one for the team and open a hard to find kit, scan and share the plans with the community. I recently did this for one of the kits in the image Bob shared, the Centuri KD-7 Starlifter and sent the plans to YORP. Now anyone can build one and it's recorded and preserved.

[luke strawwalker]

scigs, my interest isn't in trying to make money or have my hobby pay for itself. My interest in the old kits is in owning a piece of model rocket history. As a somewhat (or maybe VERY according to my wife!) obsessive person I also like collecting things, and the idea of building a complete collection of Estes rockets, or at least completing the early years, is appealing. There are very few things one might collect that you could actually collect ALL of, without spending millions!
So, I do enjoy collecting the older kits and just keeping them in the bag. And, as you say, I can build a clone and have the best of both worlds - the original to keep, and a clone to fly.
The reason for my question is, I'm not sure I do want to collect if it means paying thousands to create a collection that become worthless in a short time. If I am going to invest that kind of money I would like relatively high odds that I can recover a large portion of my investment if I need to/decide to move on. Make sense?
And by the way I'm inclined to agree with you - I think these old kits are really only valuable to the folks who used them back when. I suppose there will always be a few oddballs like me who are interested in the early days, and like collecting, but as cloning becomes easier and more popular the need to collect the actual kits will wane.
For my own part, I think rather than trying to collect ALL the old kits, I may just focus on a few of the early years, or kits that really flip my fancy. That way I can have a piece of history but not sink my life savings into it.

Well, joe, one thing to consider is, that IF you amass a COMPLETE collection, that in itself would be quite valuable, if you ever decided to divest yourself of it. You could sell it AS a complete collection rather than piecemeal and undoubtedly fetch more for it then piecemealing it, but the buyer list would be pretty short...

I'm not a 'collector' and don't really see the appeal myself, but to each his own, and good luck! OL JR :)

[joecool]

Well, joe, one thing to consider is, that IF you amass a COMPLETE collection, that in itself would be quite valuable, if you ever decided to divest yourself of it. You could sell it AS a complete collection rather than piecemeal and undoubtedly fetch more for it then piecemealing it, but the buyer list would be pretty short...

I'm not a 'collector' and don't really see the appeal myself, but to each his own, and good luck! OL JR :)

that thought has occurred to me but to be realistic i don't think it would be possible to collect the entire catalog. i wouldn't be surprised if some of the original models are extinct, and then you have the usual confusion about what constitutes the entire catalog - do you have to get starter sets when you can buy the rockets separately? what about combo packs? then of course there is the $ you would have to spend - with many kits going for $50-$100, and a significant number in the $100-$200 range, you would spend tens of thousands to collect the whole lot!

no, what really interests me is to try to collect some of the early years (maybe all of the '60s) and then a smattering of the kits since then - the ones that really grab me. some of these i will build, like the death star i just finished, the star trek models, etc.

[Rocket Doctor]

From what I understand, there are a couple of those out there in rocketry land who do have a complete or near complete collection of kits. And, there is a guy that buys on ebay that has two complete sets of catalogs, and, the way he looks at it, it's an investment for his kids future. And, he would drop a few hundred dollars for just one catalog.

Preservation is the best way to look at it, once an item is gone, that's it, it's gone forever, and forever is a long time..........

That is why we have museums, to preserve the past for future generations. Also, prototypes are very valuable as well, the very first.

[LeeR]

And, he would drop a few hundred dollars for just one catalog.


Yep, been up against him, I am sure, bidding on old catalogs ...
:mad:

[PaulK]

What is it worth to actually find rare,collectable OOP kits you thought you'd never find and hold them in your hands? Priceless. Why,I might have to go fondle some right now...
Yup... ;)

BobIs that a photon Probe you're fondling?! :eek: ;)

[joecool]

From what I understand, there are a couple of those out there in rocketry land who do have a complete or near complete collection of kits. And, there is a guy that buys on ebay that has two complete sets of catalogs, and, the way he looks at it, it's an investment for his kids future. And, he would drop a few hundred dollars for just one catalog.

Preservation is the best way to look at it, once an item is gone, that's it, it's gone forever, and forever is a long time..........

That is why we have museums, to preserve the past for future generations. Also, prototypes are very valuable as well, the very first.

boy, it sure would be cool to get to talk to some of these folks with such large collections. love to hear how they did it, how they manage it, how much they think it's worth. how would it get in touch with them?

[Der Red Max]

boy, it sure would be cool to get to talk to some of these folks with such large collections. love to hear how they did it, how they manage it, how much they think it's worth. how would it get in touch with them?
I know what you mean!
I just don't know how some of these guys do it!:confused:
I can't figure it out.:mad:

Like this guy!!!!!:eek:: http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=48420

[Shreadvector]

boy, it sure would be cool to get to talk to some of these folks with such large collections. love to hear how they did it, how they manage it, how much they think it's worth. how would it get in touch with them?

Just show up at their apartment with a roasted Turkey and a box of wine.

[joecool]

so who's got the address?! :-D