Explain??

[troyohchatter]

I bought an amazingly good yet cheap tent five years ago. I decided I use a tent enough to have something a little better. With that, I went shopping and discovered something. Coleman must make a gazillion different named tents, and many cannot be researched on any websites. There was a thread out here about the Coleman Blue Springs. Good luck finding it anywhere.

Anyway, Dicks Sporting Goods had a 11X9, 6' high tent called a "Laurel Creek" for "Reg $169, sale $69. It's not on their website and the two or three websites that do refer to it claim that it's not avaiable. I figured what the hey, and bought it. The oddest thing about it is it has rain fly vents. I haven't seen another Coleman with these.

So, is this par for the course with Coleman, making tents with slight changes and naming them many many times?

[frank6160]

They will take the same size tent and make it different colors and sell to different stores to be sold under a different name at each. I bought a Coleman Flatwoods at Dick's a few years ago. Same tent as Coleman Sundome.

[Bigdog57]

Yep, standard practice for the big chain stores to have their own 'name brand' item specifically for them, and it won't be in the manufacturer's catalog. WalMart does the same. Sometimes they have the manufacturer make some small change, to differentiate this item from the regular catalog item, sometimes not.
We .22 rifle collectors have been dealing with this for decades, so we have a 'Manufacturer's Cross Reference Listing' - but I don't think there is a similar thing for tents and camping gear.