Trade Boxes

With the mirror image camouflage Dave

Greetings all, in a previous post I mentioned an unusual Trade Box recently acquired, for the 687 Trailer for 25-pounder Field Gun. As you see from the first picture, it has labels applied at each end of the lid (look carefully and you can just see the edges of the label): However, on removal of the label from one end, the direct printing is for the 686 Field Gun itself, as shown: This raises some questions: 1 Has anyone seen any previous reference to the Field gun being sold from a Trade Pack, rather than being individually boxed? 2 If it was sold from the trade pack, how on earth did they fit six models into it? The 'blast shield' stands quite a bit taller than the sides of the box base, and in any case (having tried with some of my 686 models) it seems impossible to fit all six in. 3 I have also experimented with some of my earlier 162c 18-pounder guns, and they do fit (albeit a rather tight squeeze) as they are smaller and have a lower 'blast shield' - so could this have been an Export-only (USA) box for the 162c, and an intention for the 162c model to be re-numbered to 686? My research seems to indicate that the 162c was exported to America until 1955 - but infuriatingly, the quality-control rubber stamp on the inside of the lid (4 digits) reads 'E - 6 5?' (June 195?) the last character being unreadable! There is no evidence of a 'Hudson-Dobson' label on the box, however the lid does have a handwritten price, 1.00. 4 I would not have thought trade boxes for the 686 would have been printed in error, but who knows? Dave B, you have a wealth of knowledge on military matters, any ideas? Over to you! Regards, Adrian (141)

Adrian Never seen this one before but Meccano does not surprise me any more. The hight of the box is not a problem if the dividers were those of the gun. There must be a way to fit the six guns in the box, overlaping each other two by two. I have not yet seen a yellow box for the amunition trailer (is there one ?). The yellow box for the gun can be dated to 1958 because the drawing shows the gun with treaded tyres. So there is a short gap between the issue of the gun in July 1957 and the issue of the yellow box some time in 1958. The tradeboxes must have been used during this short period. The prices seem right for the USA : 1.00 for the gun 0.47 for the trailer 1.28 is left for the tractor 2.75 is the price of the full unit in the 1958 USA catalogue.

Hello Adrian I have the trade box for the 687 Trailer but the box with a label for the 686 Gun is completely new to me. This is both a conundrum and a complete surprise. I have also tried to fit guns into my trailer box and it certainly is not easy. The suggestion of oversize dividers is questionable as that would mean the box lid would not fit properly to the base, this is something Meccano did not do as it would make the boxes unstable when they were stacked on shelves. I suspect that this is another mystery which may not ever be solved. I guess we could write a book about these mysteries there are lots of them. Dave

Hello Adrian, Welcome to the Forum and thank you for your post. Indeed a mysterious and interesting trade box! I have never seen it before and I think Dave is right. Dinky Toys will keep surprising us all. If only your trade box would not have been empty....... Kind regards, Rob

G'Day Adrian Your first post on a trade box and you come up with this?!! What's next??! As Dave correctly states, we will never know, unless some old former Meccano employee brings out a copy of a factory memo that provides us with the answer! Until then, we are left to ponder. One suggestion in view of you having tried to fit six x 686 25-Pounder Field Guns inside and they do not fit unless drastic action is taken to reduce the height of the model (tyres supplied separately!) perhaps the box was a sample that originally had a larger base. When the decision was made to sell the 686 in its own box, the lid of the sample was given a printed label and a base to suit the 6 x 687 trailer. As I said in some previous post somewhere, Meccano never threw out anything if it could be modified, adjusted or whatever and as we are yet to see another similar trade box that only leaves it being a sample. Just a thought. In any case it is a very rare 687 Trade Box, and congratulations for having acquired it. Kind regards Bruce (150)

L.S. Meccano had many misprints or errors on the boxes. Sometimes it was corrected with just a new sticker over the wrong information. The box for pre war No 50c H.M.S. Effingham was initially printed Battle Criuser. As this was not correct a sticker was stuck over the text with just Cruiser. This box has no date code printed so a very early issue. John.

L.S. Sometimes a model was altered and previous boxes were still in stock. So Meccano altered the boxes and stucked a new sticker on the box. This is a Singapore Flying boat box. Still printed with only the name of the plane. When a roller was added to the model this information was printed on a separate sticker and stuck at both sides of the box. See the picture with separate sticker. John.

L.S. The Company who made the boxes sometimes had serious errors. Not clear if this was just a fault in production or wrong information on dimensions of a box by Meccano. In my collection a box R.A.F. planes No 61. When I bought the box you could see there was a label underneath the paper on the lid. As there was a chance that this was a unkown label for set No 61 I steamed off the paper. Underneath a label for set No 24 and not a 61 label. Mistery solved! I have found more of these boxes with hidden label but now I keep them original. John.

When you do find a box with a second label like John's 61/24 box the label underneath is usually in wonderful condition as it has been covered since new. Here is a conundum in my trade box collection. I have two trade boxes for the 30SM Austin Covered Wagon - the Military export version. One has the reference number 50158 and the other 50148, I have not been able to conclusively determine which is the good one and which is the rogue, if anyone has any positive information I would welcome it. Dave

Dave, I have recently purchased a Trade Box No 687, with contents, for the Trailer 25 Pdr Field Gun but the separators are obviously not original. Do you have an original in your extensive collection that I might be able to take the details of. Regards Malcolm

Hi Malcolm I have a 687 trade box but mine has no dividers, however, I found this on the Vectis website: It is four pieces of card to prevent movement in the box. I hope this helps, Dave