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  #11  
Old 09-14-2021, 10:52 AM
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Earl Earl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by A Fish Named Wallyum
Impressive. I'd like to see a pic of the whole collection.


Yes! Me too!! Maybe one day I can get them all together (somehow) in a 'family' photo! It would be neat to re-create that image of Lee Piester on the inside back cover of the 1971 catalog made on a local golf course, sitting in the middle of all the then-current Centuri kits. When I got that catalog back in very late 1970, I thought he had to be the coolest man around!

Earl
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  #12  
Old 09-14-2021, 11:40 AM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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Congrats, Earl !
Knew it was rare, but that's a REALLY rare one.
Do you have Enerjet kits in the collection too ?
I sold the only Enerjet Nike Smoke in my collection.
Couldn't pass up 4x the price I paid 8 years prior for an OPENED bagged kit.
If boxed I would have kept it.
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  #13  
Old 09-14-2021, 11:44 AM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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I see the following Mini-Max kits in the pic:
Hustler
Aero Dart
Explorer
Scorpion

I don't see the Lil' Hustler or Jaguar.
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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL
, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !

Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !
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  #14  
Old 09-14-2021, 12:03 PM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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Earl-
Are your Mini-Max kits complete with the engines like they sold most of them in the Centuri catalog ?
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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL
, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !

Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !
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  #15  
Old 09-14-2021, 01:36 PM
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Earl Earl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
Congrats, Earl !
Knew it was rare, but that's a REALLY rare one.
Do you have Enerjet kits in the collection too ?
I sold the only Enerjet Nike Smoke in my collection.
Couldn't pass up 4x the price I paid 8 years prior for an OPENED bagged kit.
If boxed I would have kept it.


I don't have all the Enerjet kits yet. I still lack the Aero Dart and the Athena. I have the others. That Athena may prove to be even more difficult than the Visible Astro.

In that Centuri 'family photo', yes the Lil' Hustler for some reason is not present. There is one other kit that is not there, but I can't recall offhand which it is. The Jaguar IS in the photo: it is on the far right, in red, right above the white Payloader II.

Ok, I just checked and it looks like both the Quasar and the single stage Arcon are also missing from the photo. The two-stage Arcon-Hi is there, but not the single stage.

On the MiniMax kits, I got one, the Scorpion, with motors. The Hustler had the motors with it, but the seller did not want to ship them. The others have had no motors with them. Hard to know for sure if that is way the came originally or if other sellers also removed the motors before selling/shipping them. Early on, the MiniMax kits came ONLY with motors; by I think the 1971 catalog they gave a purchase option with or without motors.

Of all the MiniMax kits, the Lil' Hustler took the longest to get and was the most expensive. I have seen it only once for sale. I have only one of it and the MiniMax Aerodart. And I have been able to obtain only one Micro Probe and Marauder two stage kits (I generally try to get one kit to build and one to collect). Both of those were a challenge to get; both of them much harder than the typically highly prized Saturns and Little Joes, save for the 1/100 Little Joe II. That was a bugger to get too. And pricey.

Earl
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  #16  
Old 09-14-2021, 01:56 PM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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I have only seen boxed Athena kits offered for HUGE sums of $$.
Carl at Semroc sent me a prototype of a SLS Enerjet Athena kit many years ago. Only one in existence, so it's rarer than even original kits. He never found a source for the plastic wraps, so was never kitted.
Won't be built.

I have at least seen Athena kits offered. Your visible Astro was the only one of those seen by me.
__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL
, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !

Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 09-14-2021, 07:16 PM
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Earl Earl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
Yes! Me too!! Maybe one day I can get them all together (somehow) in a 'family' photo! It would be neat to re-create that image of Lee Piester on the inside back cover of the 1971 catalog made on a local golf course, sitting in the middle of all the then-current Centuri kits. When I got that catalog back in very late 1970, I thought he had to be the coolest man around!

Earl


Oops. Miss-spoke on the Quasar not being in the group. It is right in front of Lee! Doh!! Not sure how I missed it....

So...it is the Lil’ Hustler and the single stage Arcon that are not in the group photo.

Earl
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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
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  #18  
Old 09-18-2021, 11:03 AM
PaulK PaulK is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl
Yeah, that was a monster hit for sure! I kind of flinched to go that high (well, my actual final bid was considerable higher than the final price! ), but after well more than a decade of searching for this kit, I was not going to let this opportunity slip away. I may not live long enough to see another one come up!

I have seen photos of only one other Visible Astro kit, from the collection of another collector. Interesting thing is that, even with as short of production run this kit had (one year), his kit face card is a bit different from this one! So, there are variations, even with this kit!

I suspect this one to be the original face card design, as I can see this one comes with what would have been the early ‘anchor ring’ shock cord attachment method. From the photos of the other collector’s kit, his bag contains the later self-adhesive paper/foil shock cord mount.

Regrettable in this kit that the fins have been cut out, but I have another ‘regular’ Astro 1 kit from this era that contains an uncut fin sheet of this fin style (and yes, the Astro 1 had two slightly different fin platforms over the years).

Earl
Glad you were able to fill the hole in your collection, Earl.
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