Gallery of Meccano Models

How I became a Meccano Enthusiast

Meccano parts illustrated list

Where to buy Meccano sets & parts. Click for a list

Simple Parts restoration

My Meccano Room

100 Years of Toys of Quality Exhibition celebrating 100 years of Meccano at Didcot in 2001

The Perfect Table Railway

Triang single suspension crane grab pictures and information

I have displays of Meccano models at The Museum of Power Langford near Maldon Essex at the Steam Day Easter Sunday April 8 2012

Welcome to Alan's Meccano pages.

I have been a "Meccano Boy" for most of my life but I have taken a more serious interest in Meccano during past fifteen years or so. As you browse though these pages you will find lots of information about Meccano, its history, information about Meccano today and nostalgia for times past. These web pages will I hope be helpful in your own Meccano model building, perhaps to give ideas or inspiration or encouragement to get you constructing models with Meccano. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Click on the links above and in the left column to navigate around my web site.

In the Gallery of Meccano models you will find over sixty models, large and small that I have built in recent years plus background information and facts about them.

A NEW PAGE of simple fun models that can be made with the Vintage Special Edition Set

Your questions and comments are always welcome . I am happy to give advice but I regret that I am unable to give valuations of Meccano. Please note I do not sell Meccano sets, parts or instruction books if you follow the links there are recommendations of where you can obtain these.

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Text and layout revisions to this page February 01 2012

THE POST WAR YEARS

Production of Meccano and Dinky Toys, resumed in late 1945 not long after the end of the Second World War. The advertisement above is from April 1945 and gives hope of things to come. By December 1945 things were looking hopeful as the advertisement on the left shows, from the back cover of the Meccano Magazine of December 1945. This was the first ad to announce supplies would be in the shops ready for Christmas. The colour of parts had changed from the pre war gold and blue to the familiar mid red and green. Although parts in these colours had been in some export sets in the 1930s and until production stopped around 1941.

The products sold in the immediate post war were much the same as those produced prior to the war and perhaps a few were possibly unsold pre-1943 stock. The box lid above right was the same design as that of some six years earlier but with a different colours. The range of products were smaller and in very limited supply especially for the home market, most were exported. The range of Meccano parts was greatly reduced too from those of the boom pre-war days, many of the more specialist parts such as the geared roller bearing, digger bucket, and train parts were dropped. The aero constructor and car constructor sets were not re-introduced either. It is interestingly to note that throughout most of 1946 Meccano continued to show the pre war parts of blue and gold as did most of articles about Meccano in the Mecano Magazine. It was not until November that an advertisement appeared that showed for the first time the new colours but in black and white, no mention of the change is made in the Meccano Magazine articles nor the advertising. In the past colour changes had been announced along the lines of "Big news for all boys." The model of Tower Bridge shown on the box lid and the hammerhead crane shown in advertisement were both models that could be built with a number 9 set and were both shown in the 1940 9-10 instruction manual,

The picture below left is a Dinky Toy covered wagon an old favourite of mine from the late 1940s, very similar to that of the pre-war years. It was not until 1947/48 that a full but much smaller range of Dinky Toys, Hornby trains, Dinky builder and Hornby Dublo were made available. The advertisement above right, featuring the good old traction engine is from the April 1947 Meccano magazine. In the Meccano Magazine advertisements of this time mention was often made about shortage of products and reminders to take good care of your Meccano products. As late as 1949 shortages were still mentioned in Meccano Magazine ads.Then another blow, not long after production started gearing up again with many new products planned the Korean War (1950-1953 once again brought shortages of materials. This meant production and quality had to be cut back, many former brass parts were made in steel with an anodised black finish these included, angle brackets, pulleys, washers, nuts and bolts.

Things started looking up when in October 1953 when it was announced on the "Spanner" page of the Meccano magazine, that several parts not available since 1940 were to be re-introduced although they were not exactly useful parts to the majority of Meccano model builders but it was a start.

In 1954 new parts and completely new instruction manuals were announced, until then many of the models were based on those originally published in 1937 these had a rather antiquated appearance for boys born after the war. Shown below is a page from the 1954 Meccano catalogue , announced as the "Toy of Century" there is certainly a tone of optimism in the brochure. Its probable that many of these new parts and manuals would have introduced earlier had it not been for the Korean war. The mid 1950s saw great success for the Meccano Company with Meccano sets, Dinky Toys and Hornby Dublo model trains were all selling very well. At school I remember most boys wanted their toys and they were certainly the "Toys of Quality" mentioned in advertising. However products from the Binns Road factory were never cheap and cheaper rivals were taking an ever increasing share of the toy market. The supremacy of Dinky Toys was under threat from Corgi Toys and Lesney Matchbox. As the fifties drew to and end Meccano parts were changed to a much lighter shade of green and red.

A big change came about in 1962 with new packaging for Meccano sets and completely new manuals using exploded diagrams, instead of photographs with lengthy text. The sets however were not changed in their parts content although several new parts were introduced at this time including narrow strips and plastic flexible plates. Narrow strips had been first shown in a 1920's manual see 1929 Level Luffing Crane but were not put into production for nearly 40 years.

In 1964 there was a dramatic change in the colours of parts, these became black,yellow and aluminium this followed the take over of the Meccano company by Lines Bros. the makers of Triang Toys. The aluminium finish was not at all durable and in 1967 the parts in this finish were instead zinc plated, parts in these colours continued until 1970. The contents of the sets remained much the same as they had been in the previous post war colour ranges although the packaging and instruction manuals changed several times. In an interesting throw back to the past Mecano, introduced in 1965 a steam engine produced for the by Malins makers of Mamod steam engines. There had been Meccano steam engines in the past notably the 1929 engine with a vertical boiler, the Mamod made engine was very similar but with a horizontal boiler.

This post war period cannot be left without one of the most enduring images ever produced by Meccano and recognisable to any "Meccano Boy" brought up in the 1950s. The illustration is of a block setting crane and is by W.H.Pinyon an illustrator who's work was commissioned by the Meccano company for their cover designs and advertising over many years. The crane illustration was used on manuals from 1948 - 1955. Although similar in many ways to a Super Model plan, the Giant Bock-setting Crane, produced in the inter-war years it has different proportions, the rear boom of the crane for one thing is shorter. This may be artistic licence enabling the composition to be correct. W.H. Pinyon sometimes took things a bit too far though, a 1950's Hornby Dublo advertisement shows pipe smoking Dad with five fingers in addition to his thumb! No instructions were ever published for the model as illustrated by Meccano Ltd,. Recently MW Mail Order have published a Model Plan 143 by Bill Steele based on Pinyon's iconic illustration giving the history and full building instructions. The model by the way could not be built with the parts in the number ten set!

 THE NINETEEN SEVENTIES AND NINETEEN EIGHTIES

The Illustration shown left of the boy with the large sets is taken from an early 1970s promotional leaflet and shows the No.9 and No.10 sets the largest available at that time. Described in the leaflet as, " 9 and 10 the big sets for the boy who has everything! " Although in reality these sets were aimed more at the growing adult hobby market.

In 1970 the colours were again changed this time to blue, yellow and zinc the set contents although remained the same those introduced in 1962. In France the colours were changed from blue and gold to the same colours as those from Liverpool. The early 1970's also saw the introduction of Meccano Highway and Army Multikits, these were sets with standard parts finished in special colours. The sets came with a ready made metal cab in two parts, wide plastic wheels and enabled a range of service vehicles to be built. An attractive crane set with all yellow parts was also introduced around this time with a new small 6-12 volt motor. Interestingly these sets were produced in a deeper shade of yellow than the colour in the standard range of sets. In many areas quality was reduced with more plastic plates in the sets, many former brass parts were now just plated alloy or steel.

A major change came in 1978 when the old set range, 0 - 10 that went all the way back to the 1930's, was abandoned. In its place a series of five sets 1- 5 were introduced in new dark blue and deep yellow colours. Two extension sets were also available "S" and "L" . In a break with tradition the sets had a range of parts totally unrelated to those in all previous series of sets. Many of the parts included had only ever been available in the much larger sets one notable omission from all the new sets was part 52 the 5x11 hole base plate that had featured in every set from the earliest days. One welcome addition were wider "Road Wheels" with a stylish mag alloy look but they used nine separate parts. It had taken Meccano a long time to recognise that the tin wheels and the later very similar plastic wheels in the sets looked like those found on vehicles from the 1920's. The Meccano L extension set below is from the 1978 range. I bought this several years after the closure of the Binns Road factory, it was hidden on the bottom shelf of a toy shop in Cornwall, the owner sadly did not even know it was there.

The 9 and 10 sets were still available but now in the new colours with the same range of parts as the previous colours. Although the number 9 set was in fact a repackaging of what had been until 1970 the No.8 set, the 10 set was now in a three drawer cabinet and cost around £350.

The 1978 range of sets were a belated attempt to bring Meccano up to date with a contemporary presentation,strong graphics and new modern looking models, some old favourites were included though such as the Meccanograph. Unfortunately by then the writing was on the wall, several years of falling sales, the changing tastes of what children wanted and competition from other construction toys. The Meccano company suffered to from out of date production methods, bad management, lack of investment, poor labour relations and restrictive union practices, these all conspired to bring to an end production at the famous Binns Road factory. At 3:30 on Friday, 30 November, 1979, the 800 workers were told that the factory would close in 40 minutes. The company was then owned by Airfix industries, makers of Airfix plastic kits, they continued to produce Meccano through sub-contractors for a while but in November 1980 the Airfix Group its self ceased trading bringing to an end all production of Meccano in the U.K..

Following the closure of the factory in 1979, questions were even asked in Parliament. It also made newspaper headlines, with such classics as "Meccano Company wound up." The net result was that it became very difficult to get hold of any new Meccano parts or sets. The situation was not helped by the very small amount of stores still bothering to stock spare parts. In the nineteen fifties every major town or city would have had at least one Meccano dealer with a cabinet full of tempting spare parts. It really looked as though it was the end of Meccano and what was seen as a British institution. At the time I remember searching toy and model shops for sets and spare parts for my two sons plus of course a few for me.

However all was not lost for the Meccano enthusiast, through the efforts of Geoff Wright of MW Models in Henley-on-Thames and a few other enthusiastic dealers, new and used parts were still obtainable, although often in short supply. Geoff Wright owner of MW models also bought the remaining stocks of parts from the receivers of Airfix and these were still being sold when he closed his shop in 2003. Things slowly improved, due in part to the fact that In 1912 Frank Hornby had set up a French subsidiary, at first importing and distributing but by 1921 some manufacturing too, in 1930 a large factory was set at up at Bobigny near Paris producing both Meccano and Hornby Trains and later Dinky Toys. Since 1959 Meccano manufacturing has been centred in Calais.

Fortunately for Meccano enthusiasts around the world the French company was unaffected by the ending of production in the UK as it was owned by the American food company General Mills and had not suffered the fate or the problems of the Liverpool factory. They continued manufacturing traditional Meccano sets and parts, but on a fairly limited scale.

In 1985 the Calais factory was taken over by a French Meccano enthusiast and accountant Marc Rebibo . Under his ownership Meccano re-introduced the 1 - 10 set range and the 1A - 9A Accessory sets, as "Enthusiasts Sets" these sets had the same content, box designs and packaging as had been produced at Binns Road in the mid 1970s and were welcomed by enthusiasts. These sets are shown on the right taken from the 1990 catalogue. That year also saw saw the introduction of allen headed bolts and the Number 10 set was presented in a new five drawer wooden cabinet.

THE PRESENT DAY

In the years following the closure of the Binns Road factory in 1979 many new metal and plastic parts have been introduced by Meccano.  There is also an ever growing range of replica parts plus many other parts that were never made by Meccano. Reproductions of parts discontinued many years ago are once again available such as the geared roller bearing. All the new parts remain compatible with the very earliest sets and all still use the same half inch hole spacing and 5/32" BSW threads. 

The most frequent question I get asked when I exhibit models is "Can you still buy metal Meccano?" Well the short answer is yes. Production of metal Meccano continues today in Calais, France under the sole ownership of Meccano SN. Many sets are currently made in China, however it was announced in 2010 that the French owned company plan to bring much of the production back to Calais.

Things have changed though, many parts are now plastic although most of the constructional parts are still metal and fit together in the traditional way with nuts and bolts. Meccano sets are now often themed to build a small range of models from the instructions supplied and offer little scope for making other models. The set above left will build three types of radio control car and was introduced in 2006. Other sets though such as The Meccano Super Construction Set shown below, and the Anniversary Edition Meccano set enable a wider range of models to be constructed and all the larger sets come with motors and batteries. I think with these modern sets Meccano today, still has the appeal it once held for past generations of children. All old parts can of course be added to the modern sets and visa versa as the hole spacing and bolt threads has remained the same as over 100 years ago.

The continued of production of Meccano in France has ensured that Frank Hornby's original invention first patented in 1901 is now well in to its second century and the name "Meccano" is today one of the most well known toy brands in the world.

Meccano sets can be bought at stores throughout the world unfortunately only a few specialist dealers sell separate parts. In the U.K. the John Lewis department stores and Argos sell sets, Marks & Spencer sell exclusive Meccano kits, models of the Concorde, Rocket and Spitfire were recent success for them. See the link on the left "Where to buy Meccano" for a list of some of the places you can buy Meccano sets and extra parts both new and second hand.

I built the model of the Hawk Jet shown below in January 2011 from a current "Special Edition Set". I think it is a rather attractive model although unfortunately other aircraft cannot easily be built with the set, unlike the Meccano Aeroplane Constructor kits of the nineteen thirties. It does show however what a realistic model can be built with relatively few standard parts.

  THE MECCANO MAGAZINE

One of the great achievements of Frank Hornby was a monthly publication  "The Meccano Magazine" produced between 1916 and 1981. The magazine started out as a folded sheet but by the early 1920s had many pages and beautifully illustrated covers. The front cover below left is from December 1934. The canal lift looks like it was built with  Meccano and no doubt inspired many a model builder as did so many topics in the magazine. Although originally conceived as a promotional tool to increase the sales of Meccano by the 1920s it had expanded to cover other interests. Articles featured Meccano construction, Hornby trains, and other products of the company plus many other topics of interest to boys and adults of the time, such as aviation, railways, shipping, engineering,stamp collecting, animals, geography wireless,and photography.

Every month there would be articles on new exciting developments in engineering, railways, construction, industry, shipping, aviation and how engineering would change the world in the future. Many articles would be linked to new products from the company for instance, the latest De Havilland airliner would be featured with a mention that it was also the latest Dinky Toy. An illustration of the Frobisher class Dinky Toy is shown above right. Engineering items were often directly related to Meccano, in many cases many machines described in the MM would later turn up as products or as models in the manuals. Commonwealth countries (then the Empire) always featured strongly in articles, these countries were prime destinations for exports from the Meccano Company. There were regular competitions for Meccano model building announced in the magazine with big cash prizes. The copyright to the entries became the property of the Meccano company and were often used in later instruction manuals or published in the magazine. Quite often competitions would be linked to an engineering company's own products such as cranes, diggers or loaders. This clearly made the link between "Engineering in Miniature" and the real world of engineering the former phrase was used for many years in Meccano advertising. At its peak of circulation in the1930s magazine was selling 75,000 copies per month.

The second world war brought many changes to the publication but until the end of 1939 the magazine remained much the same as pre- -war. However from January 1940 the amount of pages gradually deceased with much talk of shortages and a lot less advertising. In 1942 the magazine was reduced greatly in both content, quality of paper and size, from approximately A4 to a much smaller 210 mm x 140 mm and became just a shadow of its former self. After the second world war it remained at the reduced page size although with a little more content than during the war years. Much of what was published at this time was pre war material and the models shown were generally much smaller and simpler. It was not until late 1952 that real improvements were made with more pages, it was also printed on a much better quality, semi gloss paper. Circulation picked up but never reached again the peak years of the 1930s.

In 1961 the format size was increased but by then its sales were in a rapid decline and so was the Meccano content. Sadly so too were the sales of Meccano sets and the other products of the Meccano company. In 1963 Meccano Ltd. handed the magazine over to a publishing company, this lead to a magazine with very little actual Meccano content, more of a boys hobby magazine, by 1967 it was all over. Various attempts were made to revive the Magazine with out much success. In 1977 it was once again re launched but this time in a form that was to appeal to Meccano enthusiasts, a magazine that was actually about the subject in a large format. Unfortunately there were just not enough sales and after twelve issues it folded for the final time, just outliving the Meccano company in the U.K. The magazine's heydays were undoubtedly the years between the late 1920s and 1939.This was also the era of the greatest success for the Meccano company and its wide range of products. The magazines are today are an excellent source of historic information and an invaluable aid to collectors of toys from those years.

The Meccano Magazine was also published in France between 1916 - 1937 then again between 1953 - 1959.

Copyright © Alan Esplen 2002 - 2011

The picture of the 1938 No. 10 set copyright Charles Steadman click here for more pictures at NZ Meccano .com