Meccano Imitators

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There have been many imitators and competitors of Meccano over the years. Meccano was clearly the first sucessfull metal building toy of it's type and was widely imitated. Meccano Ltd.'s original patents have now expired, but the word "Meccano" is still a registered trademark of Meccano Ltd.

Nevertheless, German manufacturers of toys like "Richter's Anchor Stone Building Sets" and their "Bridge Set (of 1895)" included some Meccano-type parts which predate Frank Hornby's 1901 Meccano patent. Other manufacturers of the same era, e.g. Bing and Marklin, also produced Meccano type sets and competed with Meccano.

Exacto Ltd. produced reproduction Meccano parts in Buneos Aires, Argentina. For many years this was done with the blessing of Meccano Ltd., Liverpool. After the Liverpool Meccano factory went bankrupt, things changed and "Argentine Meccano" was renamed as "Exacto". They also manufactured many parts that are extensions to the Meccano system, e.g. 45, 55 and 65 tooth gears.

Of course, the same can said about modern day Meccano - they are introducing many new Meccano parts. In addition, many other vendors such as MR Productions sell many specialty parts that normally would not have existed.

Other modern day imitators include:

FAC (Sweden); now being manufactured once again
- see http://www.facsystem.se/default_eng.asp or http://www.vingaker.com/meccano/fac.htm
Merkur (Czeckoslovakia)
- see http://www.merkurtoys.cz
Stokys (Switzerland)
- see http://www.stokys.ch

Defunct imitators include:

Erector (manufactured in U.S.A. by A.C. Gilbert and later by Gabriel Industries). Note that modern day "Erector" is really Meccano as Meccano Ltd. purchased the rights to the Erector trademark and now sells Meccano sets labelled "Erector".
- see https://www.acghs.org
American Model Builder (a very obvious U.S.A. clone, it was the object of a lawsuit filed by Meccano Ltd. in the 1920's)
Marklin Metall (Germany)
- stopped production in 2000
Steel Tec (China)
Mek-Struct (China)
Wisdom / Sagesse (China)
TECC (Czeckoslovakia)
BRAL (Milan, Italy)
- stopped production in 2000
TemSi (Netherlands)
- stopped production in 1999
- all their manufacturing equipment was purchased by Metallus http://www.metallus.de
TRIX (Germany)
- see http://www.trix-metaal.nl
The Engineer (Toronto, Canada)
AMI/LAC (Italy)
Primus Engineering Outfits (England)
Structo (U.S.A.)
Bing's Structator (Germany)
Stabil (Germany)
Trumodel (U.S.A.)
Steel Engineering (U.S.A.)
Vogue (Melton Mowbray, England)
Mehanotehnika (Slovenia); it stopped production in late 1998
Construct-o-Craft
Construction C10
The Constructioneer
Schefflers
Modern Morecraft
Buildo
Lyons
Ezy-Bilt (Austrailia)
Tekno (Norway & Denmark)
Mekanik (Sweden)
"Elektromehaniskais konstructors" (Russia)
Thale Stahlbau Technik (E. Germany)
Structomode
Palikit
Pioneer
many, many others

Some of the above systems are compatable with Meccano, others are not.

See Timothy Edward's website - 'Other' Constructional and Allied Systems - Manuals and Brochures
https://meccanoindex.co.uk/Other/

Tony Knowles died in 2022 but he formerly published a very detailed newsletter devoted to all these "Other Systems". This newsletter is now here:

https://www.meccanoindex.co.uk/Other/OSN/

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