Meccano Ltd first produced die-cast toy vehicles in 1934 as railway line-side accessories naming them “Modelled Miniatures”. They were so successful that the company very soon re-launched the product under the brand name of DINKY TOYS, and as we all now know, the range enjoyed popularity until 1979 when the Liverpool factory finally closed its gates.
Within 12 months of their inception, retailers were selling Dinky Toys in large numbers and Meccano Ltd were boasting 150 varieties in their range. Although many of these items included railway station staff, passengers, passenger train sets and luggage, there still remained a very good selection of vehicles. Meccano Ltd soon realised that a wide choice was vital to secure the long-term interest of children; they therefore provided fire engines, ambulances, cars, trucks, delivery vans and buses etc.
A postal service was another obvious choice for the range and the first postal vehicle number 34a was a Royal air Mail Service car which appeared in 1935. This was a very streamlined and unusual looking vehicle by any standards. Painted in a strange shade of blue and designed to collect air mail letters that were posted in special blue air mail pillar boxes. Number 34a was introduced in October 1935 — but alas by 1938, it was deleted. The Dinky model was based on a one-off prototype produced for the Post Office — the real vehicle was withdrawn from use in 1938, so Dinky Toys presumably followed suit. Although never advertised in Meccano Magazine after 1938, 34a was in the Canadian catalogue for 1940! It should be noted that Dinky Toys were often available for export markets long after deletion in the UK, for example the 38 and 39 series sports cars.
The pre-war pillar box was also introduced in 1935 and has a rather attractive circular sign to the top. The red version has an arrow directing the potential customer in the direction of the nearest post office, whilst the blue version has “Air Mail” stamped on in white. Both versions were available until 1940.
The telephone box was introduced in April 1936, being cream in colour with red glazing bars, the windows being represented by silver paint. A scarcer pre-war version is red, with the windows being represented by silver and the glazing bars picked out in black. This is quite a scarce version.
In 1938 two postal figures were introduced: 12d a telegraph messenger and 12e a postman with a sack. These two pre-war figures are very attractively painted, the postman having a white shirt, black tie, a navy blue uniform, red detail on the shoulders and a dark brown mail bag, even his eyes and mouth are painted on his face, and in fact the messenger boy has similar detail. These two figures were issued post-war, but the painted detail was nowhere near as fine as on the pre-war versions.
35b a regular red postal van was not introduced until 1938 which seems surprising, as one would have assumed that this would have been a more interesting and more played with model than perhaps the blue Air mail car. The pre-war production period for the van lasted for two years until 1940, when the conditions laid down by the Ministry stated that all toy production must cease.
At the time Meccano introduced the Royal Mail van into the Dinky Toy range, they had a wealth of experience in producing their 28 series vans. All the 28 series had advertising applied to the side by screen printing or spirit release transfers, so having gained experience in this field, one is left wondering why the Royal Mail van did not have decoration applied in the same way. The words “Royal Mail” the crown and the “GR” motifs were in fact all raised in the casting and picked out in black and gold paint by hand.
35b was re-issued after the war in 1948 an production continued until 1952 when it was with-drawn. It is assumed that its withdrawal coincided with the death of HRH King George VI and the “GR” motifs on the side of the van would have been inappropriate.
Pre-war post boxes were not re- issued after the war; however the telephone box was, and is on record as having being re-introduced in 1946 and then re-numbered in 1954 as a No. 750, being finally deleted in 1962. However, these items were difficult to locate other than being featured regularly in dioramas in the Meccano Magazine. It was quite frustrating to many during that time, so whether this was a regularly obtainable item or not, is perhaps debatable.
The demise of the old-fashioned post office van heralded the beginning of a new era, and a new range of post office vehicles and accessories was about to hit the market. Unfortunately, Dinky planned them in a very strange sequence. For example, July 1954 saw the introduction of a completely new red and black pillar-box, larger than the pre-war versions but very well detailed. We had new post boxes in the range but no van for mail collections! It is possible that Dinky Toys were caught on the hop with the withdrawal of the “original” style of post office van, with the casting details on the side. A replacement post office van – a brand new casting no 260 – hit the scene in 1955 and continued in service until 1961. The yellow and black decoration on the sides read “Royal Mail” with the crown motif and initials “ER”. This was the first Dinky Toy postal vehicle to have an individual yellow box with an illustration on the side.
A few months later in March 1956, model No 261 joined the company of the Royal Mail van. This was the green post office telephone van with a silver ladder on the roof. The decoration on the side was printed directly on in the usual Dinky style, this model was announced in Meccano Magazine but it seems strange that Dinky should be introducing this as a new model, since by 1956 the prototype of this vehicle had ceased production. It is now considered by many to be one of the most attractive Dinky Toys ever produced and very typical of the era.
These later post office vehicles and accessories do look smart, especially in the gift set No 229, which contains the red van 260, the green Post Office telephone service van 261, the re-issued postman, the messenger boy and the post war telephone box. The post box was not included in this set: this could have been for reasons of cost, or possibly because it was not quite in scale with the rest of the vehicles and accessories. For example if you stand the postman next to the box, the slot for posting a letter is actually above his head at some 6′ 6″ off the ground, in scale!
The 299 set was only available from 1957 to 1959 and produced in high numbers during the run-up to Christmas. By 1961 both post vans had been deleted from the Dinky Toys range. The Meccano organisation had obviously decided that young boys were no longer interested in this type of vehicle.
1968 saw the start of the decline in the standard of Dinky Toys. The range was whittled down in number and the wonderful toys that we once all knew and loved were fast disappearing, being replaced by larger scale toys with fancy whiz wheels and ill-fitting opening doors. The Meccano marketing-men had done their research and retailers were informed that boys no longer wanted to buy a range of toys, mostly in scale, mostly reflecting vehicles that Dad had owned. What the modern boy wanted was rockets, missiles, whiz wheels, racing cars and futuristic toys. Everyone was assured that young boys today wanted to buy TV related models and science fiction models. It seemed that the Dinky Toy range we once knew was no longer to be.
However, in 1972 a complete and utter surprise: a model of a Bedford van catalogue No 410 was introduced in a Royal Mail livery. Perhaps a crude model by previous standards with its only failing from a collector’s point of view that it had whiz-wheels. The construction method was as on the old models with plastic windows, interior and a tin base plate. The model was in production from 1972 to 1980 and the Royal Mail decoration on the side of the vehicle was by means of a self-adhesive sticker. The model was available in several different varieties of bubble pack and a clear fronted box.
Meccano used the tooling for the 410 van to experiment with plastic moulding — an idea that did not proceed into production — a few test mouldings still exist today.
One final Dinky Toy Royal Mail vehicle was produced by the Meccano factory. This was in their “Convoy” series and consisted of a truck model which did not represent a prototypical vehicle and as such is not considered to be within the scope of this article but is worth a mention. However, the new self-adhesive stickers on the side of the Convoy model are of some note, because during the last few weeks of production of the Meccano factory, the red Bedford van did not appear in some retail outlets with the Convoy style sticker. It is widely believed that these were applied by retailers and not by the factory.
We hope this article on DINKY TOYS has given further impetus to new collectors and proved to be of interest to those of you who are well established collectors.
Take a look at the Dinky Postal related items we have for sale.
