McCoy pottery is American pottery which was produced by the McCoy Pottery Company. The McCoy Pottery Company changed names and owners several times over the course of its existence, making it difficult to pin down examples of authentic McCoy pottery. This difficulty has been complicated by the fact that McCoy pottery is often unmarked, reflecting the fact that it was mass-produced for daily use, not with collectors in mind. The home of McCoy pottery is in Roseville, Ohio, a region which has long been a center of pottery production thanks to its natural clay deposits. In 1848, the earliest incarnation of McCoy pottery was being produced by the McCoy family, although many people date McCoy pottery to 1910, when the Nelson McCoy Sanitary Stoneware Company was founded. Well through the 1960s, McCoy pottery was being produced and widely sold. However, the company went through a series of sales and new owners and an accompanying decline in production until 1990, when production of McCoy pott
McCoy is a particular brand of pottery based out of the state of Ohio in the United States. Sold during the 19th and 20th centuries, it is a “collectible brand.” Collectors scour the Internet, auctions, and estate sales to find McCoy pieces.
The family of pottery began in 1848 with Nelson McCoy, Sr. opening a small pottery factory. After various pottery companies, McCoy and his father, J.W. McCoy, created the the Nelson McCoy Sanitary and Stoneware Company in 1910. It was only open for about eight years under the McCoy brand. The company eventually joined forces with other brands and created the American Clay Products Company, also out of Ohio, and continued to produce their own stoneware. The American Clay Products Company dissolved in 1926, and the various companies were divided into separate entities once again. McCoy’s company became the Nelson McCoy Sanitary Stoneware Co. around 1929. Until this point, McCoy’s didn’t mark their pottery, coinciding with the market’s decline in demand for utilitarian pottery.
Trying to move with the times, McCoy’s started making more decorative pieces leading into the period of “Art Pottery,” and again changed it’s name. In 1933, the company changed it’s name to the Nelson McCoy Pottery Co. The company remained in the family until 1967, when it was sold to the Mt. Clemens Pottery Company. Nelson McCoy, Jr. remained with the brand as President. In 1974, the Lancaster Colony Corporation bought brand, changing hands again. The brand was finally completely out of the McCoy’s family hands in 1981, upon the retirement of Nelson McCoy, Jr. In 1985 the company was bought by Designer Accent of New Jersey, along with Holiday Designs and Sunstone Pottery.
The doors finally closed in 1990.
They were on of the initial giants of American pottery, from McCoy pottery vases to McCoy cookie jars. As such, they are heavily copied to this day. McCoy pottery is possible the most known name in the industry. With such a long history, and the product being collectible, there are many resources for research available to a collector: books, associations/clubs, auctions, websites, newsletters, and more.