After 2002 Estes continued on under the control of Barry Tunick.
In 2010 Tunick sold Estes.
The two top bidders for Estes was a group headed by Bill Stine and Hobbico.
Stine's bid was more than Hobbico's but Tunick personally disliked Stine and wouldn't deal with him.
Tunick accepted the Hobbico offer but wanted some revenge on Hobbico for what had happened with Quest in 1990.
The sales agreement between Tunick and Hobbico contained a not unusual clause stating that the new buyer (Hobbico) could not cancel any orders placed before the sale of the company.
Okay, no big deal.
After the sale Hobbico found out that Tunick had allowed Horizon Hobby to secretly place a huge order for Estes products just before the sale was concluded.
Now Hobbico had to fulfill an order by their chief competitor before Hobbico would be the exclusive 'big' distributor of Estes products.
Horizon ordered a lot of product. Enough to keep them going for several years.
Eventually, Hobbico became the exclusive 'big' distributor of Estes products until their demise in 2018.
Estes Industries, LLC (aka the Langford family) purchased Estes from the Hobbico bankruptcy for $7M.
Estes now made a deal with the remaining large hobby distributor, Horizon Hobby.
In exchange for the best deals/terms for Horizon, Horizon would have to agree to make Estes the only model rocket company they would do business.
In other words, the last remaining large hobby distributor would only carry Estes rocketry products and no other.
This was a big deal as Horizon was pretty much the hobby distributor of choice for HobbyTown USA stores.
While HobbyTown USA stores were independently owned and were not prevented from ordering from smaller distributors or direct from hobby manufacturers most HobbyTowns didn't want to bother with the extra effort as Horizon carried 80%-90% of what hobbyists wanted.
Many other independent hobby shops also bought from Horizon.
Which brings us to today.
To stay alive in a declining hobby industry Estes needs to protect those outlets which sell their products. MSRP and MAP are just part of that process.
Hobby shops/retailers are Estes main providers of it's product to the general public. Estes could not survive as it is on 'nostalgia' rocketry products and long time buyers/supporters of the company.
Hobbyists wants have changed. Today's new hobbyists want RTF/ARF products whether it is RC airplanes, RC cars or rockets. To them it's about the experience not about getting there (Although, there are still a few 'renegades' out there who want to build things.
).
I hope Estes survives in some form for many years to come.