About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

C is for Christmas Exhibition - 4 of 5 - Frank Hornby's Meccano

I'm not sure who invented the first pierced-steel construction system, nor which side of the pond, or Channel, it first occurred on and how much the first influenced the subsequent lines of their rivals, but just as stone-age kids played with stones and bronze-age kids played with bronze figurines (well; they might have, if they were rich enough!), so it was only a matter of time before someone in the industrial age invented something which looked like Meccano, and I suspect several sets appeared independently, at around the same time, with similar properties, but here in the UK we tend to think (and be told) Frank Hornby was first?

Certainly, it was [arguably] the most successful, and despite a few hiccups . . . survives today, as a French-owned brand with a tenuous link back to French Hornby or French Dinky, and would survive for longer - if it went final tits-up tomorrow - through the many clones coming out of mile-long factories in Szechwan and Guangdong!

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
Ancient and modern . . . little and large!

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
Although several of the components are vintage, especially the boiler, it has been put together with the modern bolts, which contrary to my previous comment in the preceding post aren't cross-cut Phillip's, but small (3 or 4 mil') hex-drives.

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
The racing car is built to a vintage plan but seems to be mostly recent components, or at least components I recognise from my childhood Meccano - 1960/80's, while the 'plane would seem to be referencing Tin-Tin's, and thus is probably from a larger French set?

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
Some more shots of both.

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
Some more small pieces and a wounderful vintage aeroplane which has a many model-specific parts or 'shapes' as the Metalcraft Spirit of St. Louis in the previous post, something I have to confess I wasn't aware of.

Army Sets; Childhood Meccano; Christmas Exhibition; Cross-Cut Phillip's; De Havilland Moth; Engineering; Frank Hornby; Frank Hornby's Meccano; French Dinky; French Hornby; French-Owned; Hawk Moth; Hex-Drives; Meccano; Metalcraft; Motorway-Construction; Pierced-Steel Construction System; Puss Moth; Racing Car; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spirit Of St. Louis; Steam Engine; Tiger Moth; Tractor;
We had tons of yellow/blue, our cousins inherited a multi-drawer cabinet of red/green heavy-gauge vintage, and while I knew there were the odd specialist part (the motorway-construction and army sets in the 1970's had a pre-formed lorry-cab I think?), this is quite a specific model, of a De Havilland Moth? Hawk, Puss . . . Tiger?

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