Meccano
Meccano Ltd. is a toy manufacturing company founded in 1901 in Liverpool by the English entrepreneur and politician Frank Hornby .
Metal construction kits
Meccano and Frank Hornby are considered to be the inventors of the so-called stable construction kit or metal construction kit . In contrast to stone and stoneware components that were customary in the past, these contain sheet metal parts made of metal, mostly produced by punching , from which children could build almost any object by screwing together durable and resilient. These construction sets gave children their first knowledge of assembly technology using screws and nuts .
Different pack sizes at different prices enabled a child-friendly learning of technical understanding and technical practical skills and abilities that grew with age.
From 1912 the Göppingen company Märklin was a representative for Meccano and also a supplier on the European continent : Märklin also built spring-wound motors for Meccano. When the sale of English toys in Germany was no longer possible due to the First World War , Märklin continued to produce the Meccano components in its own name, with a different color scheme. The Meccano black later became the Märklin green.
A typical component of both the Meccano and the Märklin metal construction sets is a centrally perforated sheet metal strip approx. 20 mm wide with semicircular rounded ends - to avoid corners that could be injured. This metal strip is available - with a constant hole pattern of 12.7 mm, half an inch - in a wide variety of hole numbers and lengths.
Car models
From 1931 onwards, Meccano manufactured accessories for the model railways , which were then emerging as toys , such as figures of passers-by and train staff. From 1934 the company also produced models of automobiles, airplanes and ships under the brand name " Dinky Toys ". Meccano was able to continue the work with success after the Second World War . With the advent of mass-produced plastic toys in the 1970s, the company's sales continued to decline until it went bankrupt in 1979.
Model trains
The sister company "Hornby" with the name of its founder still exists today; it is a well-known producer of model trains . The top model has been a replica of the fastest steam locomotive ever built , the blue Mallard , the original of which (today preserved as a museum locomotive that is not operational) set the hitherto unbeaten record for steam locomotives at 202 km / h. The Hornby model, in H0 scale , is also a real steam locomotive: it is able to use distilled water in its tender to generate steam from the current of the running rails and to travel for around 20 minutes.
See also
- Märklin metal construction sets
- Stokys
- Trix metal construction kit
- Walther's stable
- Dux cinema , children's film theater , replica of Meccano Triang
