World's Last Dedicated Meccano Factory To Close In France 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: It is the children's toy, invented in Britain, that inspired a passion for engineering, science and technology in generations of youngsters -- and their parents. Meccano building sets filled with reusable perforated metal -- and later plastic -- strips, plates, nuts, bolts, winches, wires, wheels and even motors have been used to construct models and mechanical devices for more than 120 years.
Now the last dedicated Meccano factory in the world is being closed and dismantled. The Canadian company that owns Meccano has said the plant at Calais will close at the beginning of 2024, putting 51 people out of work. It blamed the soaring cost of raw materials and "a lack of competitiveness" for the closure. Spin Master, which bought the brand in 2013, said Meccano toys would continue to be produced by its "network of partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America."
"We have no other choice than to envisage the end of industrial activity at the Calais factory," Spin Master said in a statement, adding that the factory had "never managed to break even" in spite of receiving 7 million euros in investment since 2014.
Meccano was the largest toy manufacturer in the UK by the 1930s. "By the 1920s Meccano Magazine had a monthly circulation of 70,000 and Meccano groups had sprung up around the world," adds The Guardian. "It has been in decline since the 1950s."
Now the last dedicated Meccano factory in the world is being closed and dismantled. The Canadian company that owns Meccano has said the plant at Calais will close at the beginning of 2024, putting 51 people out of work. It blamed the soaring cost of raw materials and "a lack of competitiveness" for the closure. Spin Master, which bought the brand in 2013, said Meccano toys would continue to be produced by its "network of partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America."
"We have no other choice than to envisage the end of industrial activity at the Calais factory," Spin Master said in a statement, adding that the factory had "never managed to break even" in spite of receiving 7 million euros in investment since 2014.
Meccano was the largest toy manufacturer in the UK by the 1930s. "By the 1920s Meccano Magazine had a monthly circulation of 70,000 and Meccano groups had sprung up around the world," adds The Guardian. "It has been in decline since the 1950s."
Interesting.... (Score:2)
I never even heard of this before. Guess it wasn't a big thing in America? It sounds like a variation of the classic erector sets we used to have as kids' toys?
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if you follow the 22 year old necro they provide, you'll see they're the same thing :)
Re:Interesting.... (Score:5, Informative)
From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So, yeah, this was back when the US was to the UK what China now is to the US.
were different, merged [Re:Interesting....] (Score:4, Informative)
https://wisdomanswer.com/which... [wisdomanswer.com]
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Ironically, UK Marmite is closer to Vegemite than it is to Australian Marmite. Australian Marmite is a different formula by a different company that licenses the name.
You ended your quote a couple lines too early (Score:1)
From wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So, yeah, this was back when the US was to the UK what China now is to the US.
You should have continued:
Erector was bought out by Meccano in 2000. I was too old to be aware, but it sounds like they either started marketing Erector sets around the world, o
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I had an erector set when I was a kid! You could build some things, but the pre-drilled holes in the metal pieces made it so you could only build certain things, it was hard to get the holes to line up every time.
I used to cut my hands on the sharp-metal-edges of the poorly-punched sheet-metal girders and other parts, and have to go get a band-aid.
If you tightened the metal screws too tightly on the metal girders, it bent them, ruining the pieces. Too loose, and your contraption would fall apart.
Aww, the go
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A Meccano set sounds like it would have been a nice change.
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Like Meccano, there were lots of different Erector sets, and lots of different parts. And it had tiny screws and nuts that you could swallow instead of rubber bits :)
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Re: Interesting.... (Score:2)
I had a Gilbert Erector Set as a kid. It definitely primed me for Geekery.
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It was, with the boomer generation. Since then it mostly faded from popularity in favor of Lego.
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I never even heard of this before. Guess it wasn't a big thing in America? It sounds like a variation of the classic erector sets we used to have as kids' toys?
Meccano is the British equivalent to Erector, but a lot sturdier.
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They were the same. Erector was from AC Gilbert, mecanno was foreign, and were run out of the market when they tried to compete. Later, after Mr Gilbert died, Erector hit the skids and Meccano bought them out.
that's just sad (Score:2)
I loved my meccano kit as a kid
Competitiveness, read: economies of scale (Score:4, Interesting)
Some dumbasses, usually ones on the take from the CCP, have a habit of saying it's just not possible to make $iGadget here because the ecosystem isn't here to support low value-added manufacturing the way it is in China, with whole industrial cities with suppliers in close proximity and established relationships in place.
And they're right only partially and in the narrowest technical sense: that ecosystem *does* exist there. Because of decades of investment that occured there instead of here. Leaving what had been such an ecosystem here to atrophy from lack of investment. That occured there at the expense of here.
Ecosystems like that *can* exist here. Many heavy (ie too much trouble to ship) goods like appliances and automobiles are made here. And they support an ecosystem of both high value and low value suppliers. Even some low value stuff like tableware and flatware still exists here. As do really low value/high volume things like aluminum cans and plastic containers.
So I return to my original point: "lack of competitiveness" = "sold out to the CCP by delusional/short-sighted/treasonous Friedmanites mindlessly parroting 'free trade' like it was a cure-all and showing ni awareness of the limitations of free trade in a decidedly not flat world."
But we all knew this for a long time. Any guessed for the ratio of laziness to treason to stupidity that keeps it going?
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I don't know about how things work in the rest of the world, but here in the USofA, the answer is "never." You see, treason is defined very narrowly in the Constitution, and this doesn't qualify. What's the definition? I'll let you look it up for yourself; it will be a learning experince.
Re: Competitiveness, read: economies of scale (Score:1)
We shall say 'ni' again to you if you do not appease us!
Meccano is the Lego of the previous generation (Score:5, Informative)
My dad was a Meccano lover. He credited Meccano for getting him into engineering.
My dad tried to get me into Meccano when I was a kid: I hated it. It was fiddly with the tiny screws and nuts. The metal plates often needed bending and sometimes re-drilling - meaning they often couldn't be reused, It wasn't fun. You could do anything but it came at a cost and it required planning.
My dad was an electronics engineer and I could totally see how he got his chops from that.
Me, as soon as I tried Lego bricks, I fell in love with them: they were standardized, didn't require tools, didn't wear out, could be reused forever, didn't require any sort of planning - not for simple things anyway. And they got me into computer programming, because that's the exact same mentality: you assemble standardized blocks to create something. Don't like it? Take it apart and try again as many times as you like for free.
Meccano defined my Dad's career. Lego defined mine. I'm a kid of the 70's and my Dad already accused us computer kids - and often Lego kids - of having a short attention span and not being Meccano material. So I can't imagine how Meccano can fit in a world of Twitter and Facebook :)
Re:Meccano is the Lego of the previous generation (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids nowadays build stuff in Minecraft. I guess theirs will build stuff in VR.
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Some kids are making games in Roblox right now. I didn't find any good lists of kid-made games, though, I don't think most of the popular content on there fits that description.
Re:Meccano is the Lego of the previous generation (Score:4, Interesting)
My brother and I had a Meccano and Lego.
Yes, the Meccano did ask for some persistence sometimes. We had one of the bigger kits, built a battleship from the plans, a harbour crane, a trawler, some other things.
Looking back, it did not influence me that much, it did not excite my creativity.
Lego on the other hand, the fact that it was easily pulled back into parts again, that was what really excited me. My first kit was a small jet plane with three wheels, and I built numerous different things with it.
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I had a very similar experience, my dad tried to get me into meccano but I think he was a bit too early, I was too young to really be creative with it, dexterity/problem solving/attention span were just not developed enough for it to really engage me.
My grandparents had tons of lego (accumulated from older cousins) but I found that to be too simple, I could build structures but I couldn't build machines.
Then I (or my parents) discovered K'nex which was the perfect middle ground for me at that age. Once my
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Plastic (Score:3)
I had some plastic Meccano sets. They were great fun and very creative. Lots of stuff like cogs and chains to make stuff which span around fast. Good times.
Emacs vs vi (Score:2)
Meccano was huge when I was a kid (not in North America, obviously.) But there were two types of kids: There were Meccano kids, and there were Lego kids, and I was definitely a Lego kid. Just like now I'm an emacs user instead of a vi user.
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"Lego or Meccano?" (Score:3)
That was a question a former colleague of mine used to ask new hires. The answers ranged from confusion to a detailed analysis of the merits of each.
...laura
Every Aussie boy of the 70's and 80's (Score:2)
..had a Meccano set.
They were the favourite xmas gift of dads and grandfathers.....
They were metal, and solid. Motors and gears and bearings and everything....
- Think of the children! - (Score:5, Insightful)
A golden age for kids. In the 50s we had the similar Erector sets. We had Lincoln logs to build log cabins. We had chemistry sets to make bombs & rocket fuels & volcanos. I seem to recall rocket sets, but couldn't have afforded one. We all had slingshots, pea shooters, archery and other homemade crude weapons. Some things had to be bought like bikes, skates, BB guns but not many. Kids built things. Used their hands and their brains. Created stuff.
We looked down on the plastic kits for making model airplanes and cars because most of us had the skills to make a real plane by hand with balsa wood and make it fly with remote control. Without any kit, we could build a transistor radio or transmitter. And by 1975 some of us could design and build a working computer from random available chips and a breadboard. Mine had 256 bytes of RAM!
Modern kids can never have those kits & components. Too dangerous for kids! Children's toys and learning tools are preassembled, allowing no creativity. They allow limited flexibility, customization or distinction from similar items. Their primary feature is safety and being inoffensive to sensitive populations. Even digital devices are used mostly for games made by someone else with limiting rules and an environment that can't be changed. The kids only option is to shoot bad guys with reflex action at every opportunity. The simplest smartphone is capable of offering great learning and creative opportunities, but it's reduced to a brain bypass box for children and adults.
If manufacturers dare to make a toy that encourages creativity, 500,000 lawyers and politicians will hunt them down and drive them into bankruptcy.
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It hasn't gone away. Interest in it might have, but it's all still available.
Re: - Think of the children! - (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking on Amazon (US site) a search for "chemistry set" turns up a lot of results. Like many things, reports of them being banned are greatly exaggerated.
Amateur rocketry is still a thing, and nowadays they can go a lot higher and further, with GPS tracking and telemetry. Strap on a GoPro for some high altitude photography.
Arduino has made programming and electronics accessible to many. I don't see many kids doing BASIC on a Raspberry Pi, but I see a lot using an Arduino and one of the many code libraries. As Arduino software can run on things like an ESP32, it is possible to build IoT devices with it. It's a bit of a golden age for that kind of thing.
The toys are different but kids still learn engineering with them.
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Yes "chemistry sets" are still available, but not with the same components and chemicals that were in them in the 50's - 70's. They've been reduced to non volatile compounds that are "safe for children". Not the same.
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We don't use lead in petrol either, that's not a bad thing.
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"The toys are different but kids still learn engineering with them."
Perhaps you live in Palo Alto. In the real world very few kids have money for rockets and GoPro. They're lucky to have a second-hand iPhone. They have never heard of Raspberry Pi, nor eaten it. But if any money comes their way they will get those Air Jordan shoes to play basketball on the broken asphalt in the schoolyard.
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Um, your timeline doesn't quite make sense if taken at face value. You talk about your 50's childhood and your 70's childhood. If you were say 7* years old in 1959, you'd be an adult by the 70's. RC planes were not feasible for the middle class until around the late-60's when transistors were common enough.
* If you were younger than 7, you shouldn't have been playing with rockets and explosive chemistry kits. Then again, perhaps your parents were inattentive (and lucky to have survived it).
Where Will the Engineers Come From? (Score:2)
Useful bits and pieces (Score:2)
I had some sets but only did the main build, never was into creative meccano or lego past the first build.
Nowadays I satill have the disassembled sets and I find myself raiding them for bits and pieces to use to complete other miscellaneous pieces or repairs. There are very convenient and useful bits in there that can be useful in many aplications if one has no metal fabrication equipment. Very bodgeable, if you know what I mean.
Fischertechnik rules (Score:2)
I was a huge fischertechnik nerd growing up. Of course, it was a lot cooler back then than it is today. I was so into it that I got electronics sets not knowing the first thing about electronics and the manuals were still in German. The trouble with it and IMHO the problem with Lego these days is that everything comes in a kit to build a specific thing. Back then, you got a big kit of parts and you actually had to use your imagination to build stuff. Same thing with Lego. When my nephew was growing up
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Copy & paste coders.