Real McCoys fell off?

[Tom71]

Being quite new to the game and having zero interest in RMC due to the price, I'm curious how much were their products back in the day for several of you to highlight how much the price increased? Even in Classifieds nowadays when something from them shows up is easily close to 2k USD.

In Europe the price has increased by almost exactly 30% in the last 12-15 months.

 

[Marc mndt]

They do seem to hold their value really well on the japanese second hand market.

Does that make them more special / interesting?

 

[Aloysius]

That said, I find when purchasing from manufacturers that have kind of a single purpose, the old saying “you get what you pay for” often still rings true.

Like or dislike RMC, this isn’t them. They’re basically a full line heritage fashion brand; think RL but on a smaller scale. From underwear to t-shirts to jeans to repro prison uniforms to belts to hoodies to leather jackets and so on.

 

[Monitor]

Trends and options.

They're still at the top of the game but their stuff costs a lot, too.

Plus there's nothing you can do to make your product stand out from the competition if you are making copies of existing jackets. Affordability while maintaining the same standards is literally everything any of these makers have at this point.

 

[Bender]

RMC stuff is still some of the nicest around. At that level, you can't say definitively that one company is "better" than another... for patterns it comes down to who specializes in what, for build quality/fit & finish it's individual jacket by individual jacket.

That all said, the nicest jacket I own is a NOS RMCNZ G1 I picked up a few months back... So perhaps there is some merit to the talk that older RMC was even more amazing...

 

[ton312]

The last new piece I purchased from RMC was an absolute let down. Felt cheap. I know Ivan had the same thought as we bought the same jacket and joked about who could return it faster. Legitimately felt like a mass produced, mall quality catalog piece. For me, RMC died around 2012, the stuff after that simply did not look as good.

The larger point for me personally is that I can do better with material and fit when I buy something original, vs the reproduction. Particularly Japanese reproductions as the elongated rectangular shape of the jackets simply don’t do me any favors. This is not an RMC, rather a Y’2 but it perfectly demonstrates my point:

The rough out on this jacket was thin and limp. Look at the collar. Lifeless, rectangular body, no attempt at a tailored fit at all. $900

Schott, 60’s-70’s era;

Significantly beefier (again look at the collar) and tailored perfectly to fit. Contoured body, broad chest. The opposite of the Japanese rectangle.
$200.

For me there is no benefit in paying an additional $700 for an inferior product. This is pretty much what I see across the spectrum of Japanese clothes. They aren’t made for western physiques. Add to the current crop of RMC pimping out every possible piece of trash with a Buck label attached at legitimately laughable prices….there is nothing worth buying there. It’s mass produced, catalog gear. Boring, uninspired and overpriced.

 

[Bfd70]

Seems like everything’s been said. I think we agree that there is a price point of diminishing returns.
Anecdotally my 2 RMC have had zipper failures. I’ll never buy another of their jackets unless deeply discounted used.

 

[Skiptomylou41k]

I am not entirely sure their price is justified in the US where I am located. I bought a well-used Buco J-100 recently and it doesn't look or feel significantly superior to Fine Creek jackets that I own. I paid similar prices but the Fine Creeks were much newer.

I recently purchased direct from Real Mccoy Enduro Trial Jacket. I think they should pay their advertisement and photographers quite a bit because that jacket looks WAY better in media than in person. I like the jacket. On the other hand, my new Rainbow Country jacket I got from the forums here just recently look as amazing as the advert photos and absolutely feel premium. WAY more so than my Real Mccoy's.

 

[cbez]

Does that make them more special / interesting?

I think it speaks to the domestic market's perception of the brand as well as second hand demand. I don't think they're seen as an ubiquitous unremarkable brand there.

 

[cbez]

The last new piece I purchased from RMC was an absolute let down. Felt cheap. I know Ivan had the same thought as we bought the same jacket and joked about who could return it faster. Legitimately felt like a mass produced, mall quality catalog piece. For me, RMC died around 2012, the stuff after that simply did not look as good.

The larger point for me personally is that I can do better with material and fit when I buy something original, vs the reproduction. Particularly Japanese reproductions as the elongated rectangular shape of the jackets simply don’t do me any favors. This is not an RMC, rather a Y’2 but it perfectly demonstrates my point:
View attachment 665573
The rough out on this jacket was thin and limp. Look at the collar. Lifeless, rectangular body, no attempt at a tailored fit at all. $900

Schott, 60’s-70’s era;
View attachment 665572
Significantly beefier (again look at the collar) and tailored perfectly to fit. Contoured body, broad chest. The opposite of the Japanese rectangle.
$200.

For me there is no benefit in paying an additional $700 for an inferior product. This is pretty much what I see across the spectrum of Japanese clothes. They aren’t made for western physiques. Add to the current crop of RMC pimping out every possible piece of trash with a Buck label attached at legitimately laughable prices….there is nothing worth buying there. It’s mass produced, catalog gear. Boring, uninspired and overpriced.

Surely one can't go wrong with painting an entire industry with dozens of brands with one brush.

 

[Canuck Panda]

Fact is, RMC US dealers are charging around $800 over what their Japanese retailers are charging today. Whether this is a good deal is up to the final consumer. To bring a ¥300,000 jacket over would cost duties and taxes bill under $200, less if you're in a business friendlier state (California is not one of them). The US retailers do take returns which is actually huge deal because trying on to see how it fits is really 90% of the battle. I think for expensive stuff, it's best to try before purchase. RMC or not.

I buy most of my RMC stuff on the used market, and the prices has been going up too, to the point I feel I am priced out of them as well. I have their stuff from the 90s all the way to the 2024 production. There is one jacket from them I am considering paying the uber expensive price for, the N2 flight jacket. At this point I am either gonna put up with John's waiting time or put up with RMC's overpriced price for a stock one. And I only reach this point of choice after having gone through a many nylon jackets from all different brands. For me, the N2 jacket from RMC would be the one, John's would too, it'll come down to price vs time.

As for leather jackets goes, I have had many RMC leather jackets. Imo they do some jackets better but some do not live up to their price point, or their competitor do a better job for less. You not only have to try it on in person, but also its competitor version in person to make that decision for yourself.

In my hunt for used RMC jackets, I actually found the transition period production the best, the ones using the middle label. From what I understand this is around 2005 give or take when the transition happened.

 

[ton312]

Surely one can't go wrong with painting an entire industry with dozens of brands with one brush.

I have seen very few Japanese repros that aren’t elongated prism or rectangular in shape. Very, very few. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist but it is the pattern norm. I also don’t prefer catalog clothes easily obtainable by any interested party.

 

[Edward]

Their zippers are really low quality, they sometimes cut costs by using panels that have blemishes, some of their patterns aren't great.

Here on TFL we talk about RMC jackets like they're something really special. But in Japan they really aren't. Every big city has a RMC store which carries dozens and dozens of j24s j100s A2s or what have you. It's like walking into a Schott store in the US.

It's too late in the day and too close to Christmas leave for my old brain to piece it together fully, but the old line about a prophet in his own land springs to mind here. Up until the mid 90s, Lee Jeans had a factory back in the North of Ireland, where I'm originally from, and you could buy a pair of Lee seconds for £12 - and struggle to find the flaw. New, retail, they were about £25. Lee were just seen as cheap jeans locally - had none of the cache that I gathered they had elsewhere. Meanwhile, a lot of folks were paying £45 on average for a pair of 501s (That's +/- GBP85.00 in today's money). Yer bog standard, very ordinary 501s that were exotic, almost "designer", in Belfast, and regarded as nothing special whatever in the US.

I live in hope that one day I'll be able to visit Tokyo and check out, maybe even buy, some stuff at the sort of local money I could justify, without the additional practical mark-ups plus the significant 'brand tax' these things seem to attract in the UK. Likewise the US; looking recently at the price of Schott peacoats, they're at least double in the UK what they sell for from Schott itself in the US. If I do decide to import one of those at some point, the 740N, even paying import duties I'll come out ahead by £200-£300 UK....


It's definitely true, though, that TFL goes through microtrends and fashions. When I first pitched up round here in 2007, it was all Aero, heaviest leather possible, one piece back or go home. How that has all changed... As the hobby has become more expensive in particular, I've seen lots of cheaper brands come and go. It's a natural churn and interesting to see, though I tend to prefer it when folks get excited over something new rather than when we go through a period of it being in fashion to turn on a brand that was previously celebrated. Horses for courses. It does always give me a wry chuckle, though, that even in a forum dedicated to interest in a specific period in the past, a fixed point, we're still a lot more subject to the whims of fashion (albeit that pertaining to our subculture rather than the mainstream) than we like to acknowledged sometimes.

 

[Marc mndt]

I have seen very few Japanese repros that aren’t elongated prism or rectangular in shape. Very, very few. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist but it is the pattern norm.

Freewheelers, Peter's Tailormade, electric leather studio, Double Helix. To name a few

 

[Madhouse27]

Like or dislike RMC, this isn’t them. They’re basically a full line heritage fashion brand; think RL but on a smaller scale. From underwear to t-shirts to jeans to repro prison uniforms to belts to hoodies to leather jackets and so on.

It was late and somehow I was thinking about Lost Worlds but discussing RMC which (obviously) created a bit of a disconnect with me following your line of thinking. I’ll go back to looking at the Schott Vandals jacket now and leave talking about the expensive stuff to others lol.

 

[ton312]

Freewheelers, Peter's Tailormade, electric leather studio, Double Helix. To name a few

And of that list only one makes anything worth mentioning IMO.

 

[cbez]

 

[ton312]

View attachment 665705

Touché!
I’ll redact my gif b/c it’s being a dick. But I’ve made my case. You seem content in your weebish ways. Why should I care.

 

[cbez]

I'm content with a mix of both. No RMC has made it into my permanent rotation yet though.

 

[Bfd70]