Twin engine monoplane

Horse and cart pull-along toy

Break down truck

Horizontal steam engine

Dockyard crane

Swing Bridge (The vintage Dinky Toy is not part of the set BTW)

Motor van

Row crop tractor with steering and trailer

Watt's beam engine with parallel motion can be seen working on my YouTube channel click link below

This is a page about the Meccano Special Edition Set shown above. This nostalgic set was first marketed in 2008. The box lid claims "Meccano since 1898" this date perhaps could be the supposed year when Frank Hornby first made his home made construction set for his two boys, that actual date is not recorded. But there was certainly no Meccano in 1898. The name Meccano was first used in 1908, so to be correct the lid should say just that!

The set is I think a good attempt by Meccano to recreate a set in the style of the early 1930s and comes in a very nice strong presentation box. The colours chosen, pea green and dark red are similar to the colours used by the Meccano Company when coloured parts were first introduced in the late nineteen twenties.

For the choice models shown in the instruction booklet supplied with the set, Meccano have gone back to the nineteen thirty 00 -3 instruction book, the cover is shown below). The the four models shown on the box lid and the instruction booklet can all be found in this original manual.

The set was given to me as a Birthday present by my son Dan who lives in Canada. I thought looked great fun and right from when I unpacked the parts I thought better models could be built with the parts provided rather than those shown. I have now made quite a few models using only the parts from the set. These are shown on this page. However it was apparent right from the start that there were insufficient nuts and bolts so I have added a few extra as required. Meccano never did supply enough nuts and bolts and still don't, loose a few and you are stuck. There has been one other additional part and for now on one model only, a rubber drive belt!

The inclusion of plastic parts does sort of take the edge off it being a representation of an old set but I am sure the use of the traditional brass parts would have made the set very expensive. Other criticisms I would make of the set are the mixture of round and tri-flat rods, the latter are needed because the smaller plastic pulleys do not have bosses to secure them to standard rods. It is odd that that only three 1/2" loose pulleys were supplied one more and for little cost, would have greatly increased the scope of the set and of course those extra nuts and bolts would have been useful! I guess the thinking was, with these parts you can build the models shown but not go on and do more. Well so much more can be done as you can see.

I also have gone back to the nineteen thirty 00-3 instruction manual for inspiration and also built models of my own design but keeping these within the type of models that could have been built in the early nineteen thirties . These are shown on this page, they can also be seen with more views, greater detail and with additional information on the NZ Meccano web site

The models can of course be built with any Meccano parts At the time of writing January 2012 the set is still obtainable from various sources.

Steel yard crane with operating hoist and rotation

Windmill with hoist

Derrick crane with operating hoist, luffing and rotation

Electric mobile crane with luffing and hoist based on the SML 20 published in the late 1920's - 1930's. The original can be seen here.

Page created October 30 2011 last revised March 26 2012