Meccano Outfit 000, special parts

2016 Exhibit
Meccano Outfit 000, special parts
location:
Arch , Area 0 -

==This exhibit is scheduled to go on display during 2016, as part of the museum's 25th anniversary improvements==,

1930: "A New Meccano Outfit, No.000 Outfit" [image info]

1935: Franch catalogue entry for "Boite 000" [image info]

A very rare set of the special parts included in Meccano Outfit 000.

The "extreme entry-level" set 000 was the very cheapest Meccano set available at the time, and the feat of producing an even cheaper Meccano set than the 00 outfit (and which could still make recogisable models) was achieved by supplementing the set's metal pieces with a sheet of unique printed pre-punched coloured card parts.

The more standard Meccano parts included in the set were strips, angle brackets, angled trunions, four small pulley-wheels and a single baseplate piece (and, of course, the ubiquitous nuts and bolts).

Card parts

The card pieces were:

• 2 × Three-inch wheels
• 1 × Aeroplane propellor
• 2 × Railway signal arms
• 1 × Windmill piece
• 2 × Railway wagon ends
• 2 × Railway wagon sides
• 1 × Car bonnet part

Manual description

NEW COLOURED PARTS

The thirty new models shown on this sheet, and scores fo others equally interesting, can be built with the aid of the splendid new coloured parts incorporated in the card in the lid of this outfit. All that is necessary is to cut the short retaining webs with a pair of scissors. The Wheels, the Signal Arms and the Propellor should be pushed slightly up from below before the cutting is done.

In building the card parts into models, it is better to have the bolt head rather than the nut on the coloured side of the parts, and the bolts should not be screwed up too tightly. Wherever possible, the 3" card Wheels should be supported and kept true on their axles by placing at their centres 1" Pulley Wheels as shown in the Pony Trap model above.

The sample model designs included in the set tried to make the most of the car parts, with the folding "car bonnet" piece reused as a birdhouse and dog kennel, the large wheel used as a parasol, and the "wagon sides and ends" parts reused as a variety of panelling purposes, as roofing, seating and aircraft wings.

The 000 Outfit

The anomalous use of card in the 000 Outfit makes it an odd relative of the rest of the Meccano range. Since Meccano Ltd. obviously had the ability to produce or source thick stamped and printed card, one might ask why they didn't make wider use of the idea. However, Meccano was considered to be a "metal" toy, Frank Hornby had emphasised the "metal" aspect when arguing why Meccano was different to and better than other construction toys, and the company might also have been anxious about the idea that if they legitimised the use of card parts as supplementary pieces for their "proper" sets, it might encourage other companies to consider using thick card as the basis of their own construction toy systems, which would then be cheaper to produce than Meccano. A company such as Deans would have been quite capable of producing a card-based construction set in book form (perhaps with a small cloth bag of fasteners attached), so it was probably felt necessary to limit the use of card to the very cheapest set in order to preserve the idea that metal sets were intrinsically superior.

1931 patent application text (excerpt):

Improvements in and related to constructional toys GB369337 (A) ― 1932-03-24

According to this invention it is proposed to incorporate in the cheaper grades of such constructional toy outfits of metal parts a cardboard or other element or elements preferably in the form of a sheet or sheets, such cardboard or the like sheet or sheets being partially cut or weakened along the outlines of certain designs printed or embossed on the card or the like sheet so that such parts may be readily removed from the sheet and then are in the form of elements suitable for being incorporated in the building up of models with the aid of the usual metallic elements in the outfit. Such parts of the cardboard or other sheet may be equidistantly perforated, the perforations being of a pitch to conform with the metallic parts thus enabling the cardboard or like elements to be readily built in to the models in the same way as the metallic elements. Where certain of the cardboard or other elements to be removed from the sheet or sheets are to rotate about pivotal connections the holes for forming such rotary or pivotal bearings may be reinforced with metal eyelets.

As an example ... printed or embossed representations of vehicle wheels ... an aeroplane propellor blade, railway signal arms and the sails of a wind mill ... a part printed to represent the bonnet of a motor car or the sides of a railway wagon truck, a loco boiler ...

— , Frank Hornby, , Patent application No.4504/31, , 1931

External links

• GB369337 (A) - Improvements in and relating to constructional toys (worldwide.espacenet.com)
• 1935 "000" set instructions sheet (nzmeccano.com)