My first Comet was purchased...circa 2013.

Finally realized that more than just Innova existed and on one of my days off from freelance writing and working at a local coffee shop, I decided to explore a course at Clemson University and pop into a local shop that sold discs called Zen Den.

After playing the course, I stopped into the second floor shop and was awash in the strong smell of incense. Next to a case full of beautiful "glass art" pipes was a rack of used/new discs and a few minutes of browsing led me to discover this really cool looking X Comet. Light blue in the center with tye-dye green/blue around the edge and 173g. I immediately snagged it and have thrown the crap out of that thing on and off for years mostly paired with a blue, Z Comet (174g) that my then fiance (now wife) bought me. I had a local buddy (S. Cann on DGCR) dye a neat Comet on it.

It took probably a year or so for the incense smell from Zen Den to wear out of the plastic. I hated when it stopped smelling like hippies.

Today, it is a beautiful, hyzer flip to turnover disc that I only bag when the course requires that shot. I've toyed with retiring it, but the flight is too good.

I don't know the date of my first Comet purchase.

I was selling discs out of the Hazelwood Community Center and when Comets came out I ordered them. I stashed a first run and a Saturn stamp in my backlog of discs to try, but I was throwing Rocs. I had actually just gotten on the Roc train; I had this orange Ontario that I finally clicked with and I threw it all the time to the point that other than putts I was basically one-discing. I loved that thing.

Dave McCormack at the time didn't make discs yet; he was retailing discs and he and Jim Kenner were friends so he was pimping Discraft hard. He was getting Discraft discs for a big discount, so he made more money if he got you to buy Discraft. This really didn't apply to me since I was also a vendor and wasn't going to buy Dave's discount Discraft discs but whatever. I was on a rando draw card with him and he got on my case about the Roc; he went on and on about how the Comet required less power and would be a better disc for me yada yada yada...it was like an 18-hole Comet commercial. I decided right then to never, Ever, EVER throw a Comet.

About a month later I was on the usual second round bottom card with my usual second round bottom card mates, except Bob Connor was missing. Bob and I were generally equally terrible and I knew he was there, but he was not on the bottom card with us. At the end of the event I ran him down, he had shot well. I congratulated him and he said Dave had tuned him on to the Comet and he was saving a bunch of strokes throwing it. I begrudgingly decided to...you know, try? So I started throwing a Comet.

That Comet was a grass green color; I had been loaded up with green and purple discs that were impossible to find and never sold, so the Comets I took were green and purple to help me with my inventory problems. It was a great Comet, but I lost it becasue, well...IT WAS GRASS GREEN!

One of the purple Comets from that early period has survived in the stash, it's at the bottom right of this picture:



Throw that dark purple thing in the shule and you will never find it; I know from experience.

^Niced

I remember one day playing with .ian and he brought a few of his Comet stash and I tossed around an old Saturn TP Comet and being really thrown off that it felt like a smaller disc than the X/Z I was used to. For some reason, I couldn't get it to work for me lol.

Tournament Pro plastic shrunk out of the mold more than any plastic I'm aware of. The discs had a smaller diameter with sharper noses and more dome than the discs they ran later in different plastics.

We are actually really lucky that the Comet mold has been adaptable to new plastics and the discs more or less still fly basically like a Comet. Z Hawks and Z Cyclones were bricks. Z X-Clones were useless. The Stratus won't mold up in legal weights in Z or ESP. The Comet really is the only old Tournament Pro disc that is still viable.

I figured it was something to do with the blend...I had a Cactus Cyclone and it felt very different from ESP and newer X ones I threw.

I need to track down some older Comets for my stash...most of mine were made 2013 and later.

I think I purchased my first comet in 2009ish...around the time that the circle stamps became the stock Z stamp. Lost that one, but I have the 2nd one I ever bought still (picked up at the same time) Pink 176 Z with I think it was a silver stamp? Got an ace with it in Nov 2011...still carry it in my bag.

I don't really have any cool old stamps, just a couple of old Elite X stock stamps. Oh, and a RR 1999 World Championship Comet - it's basically the pride and joy of my collection.

Z Comets were not in regular production until '09. There was the blue RR Z Comets, a run of I think greenish GLO Comets and the run with the X stamp that I think was all red and yellow. That was it; you had to dig for a Z Comet and pay aftermarket prices.

This part I remember; the Players Cup was a Major sponsored by Sun King and Discraft held at a ball golf course that Michael Barnett had installed a course on. It was called Red Hawk, and it was looonnnggg. It was held in Florida in November in '06, '07 and '08. In '08 the players pack discs were circle stamped Z Comets and Sun King put the extras for sale on their site; the ones I got were 173g and 171g because all the heavies were gone quickly. They sold out fast. Right after that Discraft announced they were adding them to the permanent lineup, so '09 would have been about as fast as you could have had one.

The '08 Players Cup was a fiasco; players smoked pot and trashed the hotel lined up for the event and there were issues at the course itself with players smoking weed on the grounds and tearing stuff up with golf carts. Pro disc golf 2008 was simply not ready for prime time. Red Hawk was pulled immediately afterward and the event as it had been held was canceled. There were a couple of attempts to revive it as a match play event, but it just sort-of died. At least we got Z Comets out of it.

I'll shut up now and let other people post...

I was former ultimate player that got hooked on disc golf. Long time DGR lurker, where I believe I came upon a comet thread. I just now searched my yahoo mail account and found the email from 2009 asking the folks at Woodland Valley Disc Golf in Maine if they carried any comets. I bought 3 comets, later found out they were 2nd run ESP. I still have the original yellow one 2nd row, 3rd down. Snagged a bunch of 3rd runs when they came out. Was a little disappointed, because i was used to the comet being a glidey slow turnover. Rocs were my stable mid and I bought into minimalism, so comets went into storage and starting throwing DX Ontario Rocs. Eventually realized the error of my ways and the comets have been back for a few years now. Besides, they're more readily available for purchase compared to DX ontarios.

I currently bag one 2nd and 3rd run esp.

PSA. If you've never been to Maine(lived there 15 years) 95% of the courses are private and pretty great. A strong percentage of them will have a small club house with discs available. Some of the owners are definitely addicted to plastic as well. The couple who run Woodland Valley have well over a 1000 discs. They used to carry all Discraft and Innova, every disc in nearly every plastic, and in three weight ranges. I believe they have branched out to all the other major companies.