McCoy Trains

Walt likes them! great looking trains.

Bob McCoy Jr. (son of Bob Sr., the company's founder) and his wife Bonnie still have some parts. Unfortunately I can't find their phone number and e-mail at the moment; hopefully somebody else will post, or I'll post if I find the information. 

Are those real McCoys or reproductions?

McCoy started out in the repro business in the late 50's, making parts then later complete engines. The McCoy stuff most of us think of began in the mid 60's, their own designs.

A large part of McCoy production has been rolling stock and engines for clubs. In general, club cars do not bring a lot of $$, there are exceptions of course. Most locomotives do garner a decent amount of $$ if they do not suffer zinc pest.

Look at the bay, and prices are all over the place, but much of it is buy it nows that don't sell. Arno may jump in with some better ideas of values.

For me, club cars are fodder for repaints into beer cars.

Steve

The McCoys appeared in sometime before 1950 I think, as I have some issues of model railroader I saw a McCoy ad in from early 1950. Last I heard was they made repros until the owner saw someone trying to pass them off as originals. Dunno beyond the last ad I saw was in 1967.

Haha, thanks guys for the info and comments. 

I can see why the TCA cars are used as the base for repaints. There are two beer cars I have found so far. The graphics on those are pretty cool. There are several flatcars with the circus wagons too that I like too. 

I borrowed some standard gauge track from my dad and I was impressed how smooth the engine ran after cleaning and lubricating. 

I am afraid I might have been bit by the modern standard gauge bug. I might have to retool my layout to add a loop of standard gauge track. 

Ryan

She goes by mccoyswoman on ebay - she will put up a few pieces on here and there.

This is what club cars are used for.

Parker Higby posted:

Far as I'm concerned those should be destroyed-they are not true McCoy cars-just old TCA cars repainted.  McCoy went out of business in 1998 and anything made or repainted after that year is a fake.   Have a 17 page spreadsheet of all regular production McCoy free for the asking at parkerh138@aol.com 

I would say that is a bit drastic to want to destroy someone else's work and a bit rude. Steve has done a wonderful job with these cars and they look great. The thing about this hobby is being able to make and do what you want to do. Frankly very few McCoy cars are going to have the collector status of other manufacturers. I am just glad that McCoy made the trains they did and since some of them are very reasonably priced we can make some custom ones.

Don't care who made them-somewhere down the road these are going to be confused with McCoy-are these marked as repos?   I would say not, even if they were it's a marking that could be easily removed.  McCoy has quite a few "collector" cars as you call them-I personally have over 50 one off's in my own collection.

Parker Higby

McCoy repros? Who would reproduce them? I have yet to hear of anyone reproducing McCoy. On that note, lots of cars from all manufacturers were repainted by others, and mistaken as originals, so this is nothing new. TCA had some AF trains they claimed were original, but turned out to be handpainted during the war by the original owners. Nothing new, nothing to be concerned about. You might as well call it blasphemy that I repaint Marx trains, or am chopping several common Marx and Lionel engines to make trains I want, simply on the basis of the name. You would think nothing of the Marx 490, yet it's  He same standard.

Whoa, Parker, it's 8 AM Saturday morning, give us a little softer start, will ya?  Anything you don't agree with should be destroyed?  Listen to yourself man, you've got yourself on the wrong side of being a human being with that one.  And you're getting your blood pressure up unecessarily; anybody "down the road" who confused one of Steve's repaints with an original would have to know even less about McCoy than you do.

"are these marked as repos?   I would say not,"...  You do realize that you have no idea and you just made this up, right?

So I've been taking pictures and vid for a thread I'll be starting which I'm calling "McCoy Trains McCoy Never Made".  Parker, you'll want to block it and not look at it at all, it will make you want to destroy things; but for the rest, look for it in the next week or so.  Mostly inspired by Steve's beer cars, over the past year or so I've repainted various ubiquitous convention cars, the kind you can't give away at train shows. I also helped out a fellow train collector and bought a bunch of his McCoy collection that had been damaged by fire and water and was otherwise a total loss.  Some of it goes beyond just repainting:  I've done some cutting and soldering... a six-dome Roma wine tanker? A depressed center flat car? A giraffe car?

And for the benefit of Reverend Higby, I have not marked them as "repos", which is short for repossesion; nor have I marked them as repros, which is short for reproductions, because of course they are not.  I have marked them as "new creations from McCoy parts", because I want to give credit where credit is due.  Sacrilege and blasphemy, the infidels are in the temple!

david 

well put,  David

And you think McCoy repo's aren't being sold on eBay right now for stupid money-check it out-it's becoming more and more of a problem and you attitude doesn't help the situation at all. You guys do what you want but don't say I didn't tell you so ten years down the road.  I'll collect the good stuff-you deal with the rest.  Also I see the grammar Police are alive and well on here also.

Rev. Higby