Old Cox Engines

On TRF in 2013, Krusty posted some pictures of some Cox Rocket Engines.
These were three B6-6 engines from 1971.
Instead of printing directly on the brown casing, the Cox engines got a paper wrap, like the imported Quest engines.

To see the 1972 Cox catalog, CLICK HERE 
The Cox rockets were heavy, molded of a high impact plastic.
I never saw any Cox rockets or engines in my local hobby stores.

DCastle asked:
"Were these relabled Estes engines?"
Bob Sanford responded:
"No, Cox had their own motor making machines.
These machines existed until the early 1990s when they were broken up for scrap."

What stopped production? I was told: 
The engines were produced indoors, in the same large building where ALL the Cox products were produced. Black powder dust was everywhere, even settling above in the rafters. A spark ignited the dust and there was an explosion.

These were always an interesting feature of the Cox engine package. The igniters reminded me of a match head. You would plug them into an adapter at the end of the wire lead. No micro clips!
If you wanted to fly an Estes engine with nichrome wire igniters, you couldn't connect the Cox launcher leads to them!
Cox included FOUR igniters in a three engine package. Estes and Centuri used to include an extra igniter, but later only packaged three igniters, one per engine.
The newer "Starter" igniters (no pyrogen on the tip) aren't as reliable. Estes now packages four Starters, one extra in each engine package.