When the Mec­ca­no fac­to­ry decid­ed to expand oper­a­tions over­seas in the mid 1920’s, it opened agen­cies in South Amer­i­can cities such as Bogo­ta (Colom­bia), Buenos Aires (Argenti­na) and Iqui­tos (Peru). The last one is puz­zling, as this city was not a cap­i­tal like the oth­er two, but a medi­um-sized region­al city locat­ed in the heart of the Ama­zon jun­gle in the Great Plains of the Ama­zon Basin. It was prob­a­bly cho­sen because it was a major inland riv­er port, where ships car­ried goods to between Peru and Europe via Brazil.

Basic raw mate­ri­als such as rub­ber, pre­cious woods and trop­i­cal fruit were fun­da­men­tal to the indus­tri­al devel­op­ment of Euro­pean coun­tries, includ­ing the Unit­ed King­dom. There were numer­ous British import/export firms and com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in Iqui­tos, which gave rise to a small mar­ket for fin­ished prod­ucts such as Mec­ca­no toys, for the chil­dren of expat fam­i­lies who lived there. Anoth­er rea­son could have been that it is the South Amer­i­can continent’s most cen­tral­ly locat­ed city, from where dis­tri­b­u­tion of goods was pos­si­ble through an impor­tant water­way that was the Ama­zon Riv­er.

From 1920 until 1928, the Mec­ca­no com­pa­ny had start­ed a North Amer­i­can sub­sidiary, with a fac­to­ry locat­ed in Eliz­a­beth, New Jer­sey, where Mec­ca­no sets and Horn­by trains were essen­tial­ly man­u­fac­tured for the US mar­ket.

This pro­duc­tion was short lived due to lit­i­ga­tion by the A.C. Gilbert Com­pa­ny, which pro­duced Amer­i­can Fly­er trains and Erec­tor sets, which were sim­i­lar toys. Also, the effects of the Depres­sion era were being felt, and the com­pa­ny was forced to close and was sold to its rival, which curi­ous­ly enough, made Mec­ca­no parts for the US mar­ket until the ear­ly 1930’s. Cana­da was still part of the British Com­mon­wealth, and Mec­ca­no had a ware­house and offices in Toron­to, its mar­ket pos­si­bly a part of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of this oper­a­tion.

Nonethe­less, South Amer­i­ca offered a great man­u­fac­tur­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty after the clos­ing of the N.J. fac­to­ry, and Buenos Aires, Argenti­na, was cho­sen over the oth­er two cities because it was more cos­mopoli­tan and had strong links to Europe via the Atlantic Ocean and to the rest of South Amer­i­ca. Indus­tri­al activ­i­ty was at a high lev­el of devel­op­ment, and spe­cial­ized labor and low­er tax­es were a good incen­tive to open a new fac­to­ry there. Buenos Aires had also a Harrod’s depart­ment store sub­sidiary, which was an addi­tion­al venue for sell­ing toys.

Mec­ca­no parts start­ed being man­u­fac­tured from the mid 1930’s under license, includ­ing spe­cial Horn­by trains, boats and air­craft. It’s not known if Dinky Toys were also made or assem­bled there. Lat­er after the war, Exac­to S.R.L., con­tin­ued pro­duc­ing 75% of the Liv­er­pool range as well as some spe­cial parts from the mid 1960’s to the mid 1980’s.

Fol­low­ing the demise of the North Amer­i­can fac­to­ry and the start of oper­a­tions in South Amer­i­ca, there was a need to mar­ket Mec­ca­no prod­ucts to Span­ish speak­ing coun­tries. Thus, the Mec­ca­no gen­er­al cat­a­log of the times need­ed to be trans­lat­ed based on exist­ing U.K. issues.

The first Dinky Toys had appeared as “mod­eled minia­tures” in the gen­er­al cat­a­log of August 1933, and “Mec­ca­no Dinky Toys” were offi­cial­ly renamed in April 1934. These were done as acces­sories to Horn­by train lay­outs, and to com­pete with the famous “Toot­si­etoy” range of prod­ucts.

Like their British coun­ter­parts, the South Amer­i­can exports were shown first in the gen­er­al cat­a­log, the ear­li­est known one being the 1937 issue.

The range of Dinky Toys was sim­i­lar to those of the pre­vi­ous or same year UK issue cat­a­log, with Span­ish descrip­tions and prices in Argen­tine pesos. The cov­er was in full col­or and print­ed on glossy paper, and the rest of the cat­a­log was gen­er­al­ly black and white with an extra col­or added if nec­es­sary.

The 1937 cat­a­log has 50 pages includ­ing the cov­ers, and has one page devot­ed to the Dinky Builder, two pages to Dol­ly Var­den doll­hous­es and fur­ni­ture, and six pages of Dinky Toys. It mea­sures 5” x 7”. As can be seen in the pic­tures above, some of the high­ly sought after van liv­er­ies are shown.

It’s inter­est­ing to note that cer­tain Horn­by train loco­mo­tives and rolling stock were made spe­cial­ly for the Argen­tine mar­ket in red or green col­ors, with paint­ed let­ter­ing of local rail­road sys­tems. These items are very rare and much sought after by Horn­by col­lec­tors.

The 1938 cat­a­log has 56 pages, includ­ing cov­ers; one page ded­i­cat­ed to Dinky Builder mod­els, two pages of Dol­ly Var­den doll­house and fur­ni­ture and sev­en pages of Dinky Toys, the new addi­tions being mil­i­tary mod­els. Its size is 4¾” x 7”.

Again, there are spe­cial Horn­by train issues, this time an addi­tion of a met­ro­pol­i­tan loco­mo­tive with the let­ter­ing F.C.S. (Fer­ro Car­ril Sur) or South Cen­tral Rail­ways. The oth­er let­ter­ings avail­able were F.C.O. (Fer­ro Car­ril Oeste) or West Cen­tral Rail­ways and F.C.C.A. (Fer­ro Car­ril Cen­tral Argenti­no) as shown in the pic­tures below.

The 1939 cat­a­log has 66 pages, includ­ing cov­ers; one page for the Dinky Builder, two pages of Dol­ly Var­den doll­house and fur­ni­ture, and nine pages devot­ed to Dinky Toys. The cat­a­log mea­sures 5½” x 8½”.

The new issues were some prod­ucts of the French Mec­ca­no fac­to­ry fol­lowed by a “z” to dis­tin­guish them from the British mod­els:

• 60z Air­plane set 60z
• 60az Arc-en-ciel
• 16z Diesel train 16z
• 26z Diesel auto­car
• 14z Tri­por­teur
• 53az Bat­tle­ship Dun­querque

In 1940, Mec­ca­no issued a sep­a­rate brochure exclu­sive­ly for mar­ket­ing Dinky Toys, as they had increased in num­ber and pop­u­lar­i­ty. This was print­ed only in black and white duo­tone, fol­low­ing the 1939 famous U.K. issue. It was designed as a fold­out like the 1940 U.K. issue, with 12 pages includ­ing cov­ers. Its size when closed is 6” x 9” and 9” x 36” when ful­ly opened. The new items were most­ly mil­i­tary mod­els, cam­ou­flaged air­craft and vehi­cles.

The start of World War II stopped pro­duc­tion and exports in 1941, as well as lit­er­a­ture. It should be not­ed that the agents for Argenti­na were J. F. Macadam and Co., locat­ed in Buenos Aires. The most well known toy store that spe­cial­ized in Mec­ca­no prod­ucts and Horn­by trains was Bur­lan­do Her­manas (“Bur­lan­do Sis­ters”), now defunct.

Year	Title	Cat­a­log type	Ref. num­ber
1937	Pro­duc­tos Mec­ca­no	Gen­er­al	N/A
1938	Pro­duc­tos Mec­ca­no	Gen­er­al	N/A
1939	Pro­duc­tos Mec­ca­no Juguetes de Cal­i­dad	Gen­er­al	17/738/M Argen­tine
1940	Dinky Toys Una Fasci­nante Colec­ción	Brochure	2/740/M Argenti­na

List of pre-war South American Meccano Dinky Toys literature

José Her­aud is a retired archi­tect who was born in Peru and now lives in the USA. His inter­ests include Dinky Toys mod­els pro­duced dur­ing 1945–1963, rare issues, and Dinky Toys research. José has writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles for many mod­el mag­a­zines.