A Tale of Two Saturns Part 1

On a recent trip back home to California I found my old Estes Saturn V. The pictures of the unfinished Estes Saturn were taken in the attic of my Grandparents ranch house in Moss Landing, California.

On the forums, there were questions about the differences between the two versions of the Saturn V kits, the older Estes version and the newer re-issue.
While both the Estes and Centuri Saturn Vs were 1/100th "scale" kits, they were two different models when released in 1969.

The Estes kit (on the left, #691-K-36) had embossed cardstock wraps, the Centuri kit (#KS-10 on the right) had thin plastic vacu-form wraps. The pictures on the right side are from the new Estes Saturn. It uses the old Centuri vacu-form wraps.
















Many "true-scale" enthusiasts complained that the Estes embossed wraps weren't as deep or detailed as they should be on a scale model.

On the other hand, on the Centuri wraps, the vacuform ribs were too thick.