User:Baldmoosesandwich/sandbox/H.W Cooey Machine & Arms Company

H.W Cooey Machine & Arms Company Ltd. was a manufacturing company founded in 1903 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Herbert William Cooey as H.W Cooey Machine Shop Company. Apprenticing as a machinist from an early age, Herbert developed a reputation as a skilled machinist with expertise in small combustion engines and custom-designed equipment, marketing himself as a "Mechanical Expert and Practical Machinist", producing specially-built machines to order. In 1919, Herbert's interest in firearms culminated in the first Cooey firearm, The Cooey Canuck and would signify the companies shift towards arms manufacturing. Around this time period Herbert would formalize this shift in direction by renaming the company to H.W Cooey Machine And Arms Company. In 1961, following the untimely death of Herbert's son Hubert three year prior, Herbert (now 80 years old, and without a successor to the business) would sell the company to the Olin Corporation where it would be made a division of Winchester, which was owned by Olin. After years of financial trouble at Winchester, Olin resorted to discontinuing Winchester's low-end product line, which included Cooey models.

1961: Acquisition by Olin Corporation
In 1961, the company was bought by the U.S conglomerate Olin Corporation, making Cooey a division of Olins subsidiary, Winchester.

During the 1970s Olin Corporation underwent a period of consolidation, selling off a number of its subsidiaries and businesses based on the belief the company had divulged into too many different industries and spread its resources too thin while also trying to navigate new business challenges. Olin would return to it's core business ventures in the chemical, metals, and ammunition manufacturing by selling off its subsidiaries in the housing and forestry markets.

Winchester would go on to face significant challenges throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, during which time efforts were made to return the company to prosperity. Around 1977 or 1978, Cooey was re-branded as Winchester-Cooey.

prompting Olin to attempt to return Winchester to profitability by focusing the firm on its higher-priced product line. This initiative would see the discontinuation of lower-priced firearms offered by Winchester, including the Cooey line. Efforts to revitalize Winchester would ultimately prove unsuccessful, with Olin selling off Winchester's rifle and shotgun manufacturing operation altogether in 1981.

https://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/details.asp?ID=63689 https://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/63651/data?n=6 https://images.ourontario.ca/Cobourg/63630/data?n=8

Final years
Winchester-Cooey