What exactly is the the term Bev-Bel mean? .
It was a company name just like Atlas or Kato. They took standard Athearn plastic shells and painted them in schemes usually not available from other sources. The quality of paint was better than Athearn’s factory paint at the time. My favorite was a Mopac “Herbie” graffitied box car.
I have always wondered that myself
Thanks to the “Texas Zephyr” for answering my question.
Muchas Gracias!
http://www.bev-bel.com/bev-bel.asp?roadname=Canadian+Pacific+-+C+P+Rail&roadname.x=22&roadname.y=2#
Found this. WOW! Lot’s of CP Rail stuff. Locos too. Prices aren’t too bad when you consider your getting exactly what you want.
Thanks for bring this topic up. I’ve never heard of this company.
Wow, I didn’t know they were still in business. The last I heard of them was ummmm 1989 or so.
There is a list of kit numbers, car types, and roadnames that Bev-Bel painted at this link. I believe the information is only Athearn Blue Box models.
http://hoseeker.net/otherhotrains2.html
Larry
Bev-Bel did a great job with Athearn kits. They were a little more expensive than the standard BB kit but well worth it. I think they sold for $5.00-9.00 or so. Always seemed to sell real well and they did later runs with different car numbers. The selection was somewhat limited in the standard Athearn line for SOO models. Bev-Bel came out with many SOO/WC/MNS models not available by Athearn. I bought everyone I could find. Most were very accurately painted. The LHS used to get a list every so often and you could order from that if they were not on the shelf, which was unusual. They represented everything that was right about the hobby, low cost, high quality, readily available models.
loathar: Thanks for posting the link.
Does anyone know if this is the original company?
Jim
Just remember Bev-Bel painted Athearn cars which were not always correct for the prototype car. Case in point I purchased two Bev-Bel ribbed side hoppers that are accurate for one of the PRR X31 classes but the car numbers picked were those of a GLa Hopper Car, an entirely different car altogether.
Bev-Bel was very good at putting accurate paint jobs on the wrong cars.
Rick
For those of you who don’t know, Bev-bel came from Bevrly Belkin who was the wife of Irv Belkin. Irv Belkin and Irv Athearn were great friends, even went on cruises together with their wives… When Athearn production was higher than the market would bear, Irv Belkin took the surplus and did pretty successful runs with it. Many cars that are now in the RTR Athearn line were done by Bevbel years ago. Bevbel is also a distributor with very good pricing (or at least they were when I had the shop). Sadly, both Irvs have passed on, but Bevbel last I heard was being run by a nephew of the Belkins.
I bet they got a good price on those undecorated kits! I also seem to remember that they did a diesel shell, the GP-30. Might have been the old Lionel model. Some other shells came later I believe.
Jim
Just be warned that plenty of Bev-Bel’s paint schemes were pure fantasy. If a boxcar is a boxcar is a boxcar to you, then it is a great way to get things with roadnames that are otherwise unavailable. They also did some really goofy things with the road numbers and car classes. For example, there are two different Reading boxcars they did, but the car types are swapped. Switcht he numbers and class type on the two models and they actually are pretty close to accurate - they have the number and class of a 50’ car on a 40’ model and vice-versa.
The did do extra above and beyond what the stock Athearn cars had as far as car numbers and dimensional data. This makes at least some of them highly desirable. The whole line is somewhat popular with collectors, like having every Micro-Trains release and so forth.
–Randy