These two ads from 1966 reminded me that I wasn't very keen on Meccano.
We had a big box of it at home in the 60's too which belonged to my brother, but I never felt the urge to have a go at it.
This was the era of slick E-Type Jags and space rockets, but to me Meccano just seemed to be stuck in an age of old steam tractors.
There was also an element of Frankensteins hideous monster creations about the concept that was a bit off-putting. Why would you want to make your own ugly sub-standard vehicle when you could get a stunning Corgi ready-made?!
This aversion to it however is more a fault with me than the toy I suspect because I also didn't take to Metalwork at school, and the only time I've ever been sent to the back of the classroom by a teacher because I showed no interest in a subject, was for Applied Mechanics!
Meccano - nah, sorry, not for me.
Click onto the ads and enlarge to read the wee bits.
I was exactly the same - Meccano is/was the toy equivalent of Marmite.
ReplyDeleteI could never follow the instructions and, being a bit of a precocious kid, I wanted to be able to build something straight away without much thinking. Unfortunately, there was a bit of thought involved in Meccano (I suppose the intention was to teach kids about mechanics), so Lego was my building tool of choice.
I remember the kids at school who enjoyed playing with Meccano ended up building computers or being very technically minded - nerds, in other words ;-)
Sorry but Nerds maybe but Meccano made us the future engineers of today.
ReplyDeleteLego was the same as the wooden bricks you gave to a 1 year old with a bit of interlocking going on!
Meccano, however was far superior and the thinking child’s toy!!!!
~T.D.~
Aesthetically, the end result made everything look as if they were sculpted out of Swiss cheese!
ReplyDeleteTo me Lego was a step above stickle bricks, never really seen the point to it. Meccano was the one for me, I seem to remember having an Army set with preformed cabs for the trucks. And no I am not an engineer, yes I have built my own computer but that to me is just pushing things into place, more akin to Lego really.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever knelt on a piece of Lego you'll know true pain.
ReplyDeleteSarah Zfuk
I also have another ad from 1966 for a product who combined Lego with Meccano. It was called CLiKi. It was the same idea as Lego, using the pimples to join the pieces together, however it came with realistic looking windows, doors that opened, roof tiles and so on. Their other one CLiKi PLUS had cube structures to fit together but also included revolving gears, pullies, wheels etc like Meccano.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem like it managed to compete with the other 2 though.
I begged my granny for Meccano every year but she insisted on buying me dolls which never got played with.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a cheap version of mechano called 'betabuilda' or was that my fake lego?? you could make ugly/lifelike working cranes and stuff what ever it was called I had fun with it till it rusted away in a bucket of urine(an experiment gone wrong)
ReplyDeletethe bear