965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck (1955-69)

Helllo Bruce, Glad to see you back on board, I hope that you will recover quickly.The reason for the wind screen to be slant is that if it had been vertical the casting could not have been ejected from the mould.

Jan W Meccano should not have fitted this type of tyres on the Euclid or the howitzer but at the time they did not have any other tyre of this size, they are not fit for the speed at which the trucks travels and they are useless on a gun.

The early ones were more functional indeed!

Some time ago I started collecting control stamps in boxes of 965 Euclid models in order to date certain changes that are not found on the existing drawings. For example, I cannot find the date of reinforcement of the 3 ribs at the bottom of the tipper body above the cabin on the Meccano drawing and I try to date it using stamps in boxes and/or a pencil price at the box. There must be a Meccano drawing with Job list of the tipper body with this information, probably Job no. 13973, but I couldn't find it anywhere. In the meantime I have collected photos of stamps from the years 1955 to 1962 with corresponding photos of these 965 models via Ebay sellers or somewhere else. Till now I collected 32 stamps from 965 Euclid boxes. To my surprise I found several stamps from January 1955, while 965 Euclid for the first time were introduced in MM of October 1955, but there are more examples of this happening in the past. Point 3 of the Terex assembly drawing Job No. 13970 states that the transfers Stone-Sand-Gravel were changed to Stone-Ore-Earth on 28-3-55. Given the found of several control stamps of January 1955 and the mention of point 3 dated 28-3-55, I hoped to find an Euclid with the transfers Stone-Sand-Gravel on the Euclid's tipper body, but unfortunately I have not found it. All carries the transfers Stone-Ore-Earth and I think they don't exist. But my search was not in vain. According to stamps found in 1961 (April and September) the underside of the tipper body above the cabin was still smooth while the 965 with a stamp of November 1962 had the 3 ribs reinforcement. I found 2 examples with this stamp and reinforcement from November 1962. I assume that the reinforcement of these 3 ribs took place between September 1961 and November 1962. I also found out that the V groove tires were probably fitted from 1961 onwards. In connection with this It is appropriate, as Bruce Hoy already stated in his comment #35, that on Job list No 13971 of the Terex Rear Dump Truck Chassis, the base of the 965 was first branded as Dinky Toys, but on 19-1-55 according point 5 of Job list 13971, was changed to Dinky Supertoys. Therefore, the 1st issues of the 965 have the name Dinky Supertoys in the base on a raised plate, because the name Dinky Toys had to be changed to Dinky Suptertoys before the first production run. Also a proof that Meccano Liverpool struggled with the classification of the Dinky Supertoys, as I described in # 40 of topic 521: /comment/12222#comment-12222]/comment/12222#comment-12222 Jan Oldenhuis, 14 September 2020









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Great detective work Jan!

Love this sort of detail, going to check mine now, just bought two of these the other day.

Another question I'm trying to answer is the change from the blue / white striped box to the yellow/red coloured lid box. Bruce has in comment # 35 detailed mentioned the periods of use of the different blue / white striped Supertoys boxes, but not the dating of the boxes thereafter. The latest date I could find of the last 965 blue / white striped Supertoys box with Italic lettering and the mention 'with windows', according to the pencil price of 11/3 on the box, is May 1963. The earliest following coloured Supertoys lid box with the hoist scene I found, according pencil price of 11/6 on the box, dating on January 1964. These red/yellow coloured lid boxes no longer contains a printed quality control stamp in the lid of the box, but a separate small white label with a control stamp without date. Usually these labels get lost over time, but it was still in my box. The box after that is a yellow/red coloured end flap Dinky Toys box with a dig scene on the front side. The earliest date I could find, according to a pencil price of 12/11, is January 1967-1968. The last issued box is the only original Dinky Toys Terex picture box with the real Terex Truck picture on the front side and issued, according to the pencil price 14/11, in 1969 - 1970. As Bruce expanded stated in comment #1 of the 965 Terex topic, unfortunately, the Terex release was very short-lived. Because the Euclid company was taken over by General Motors under the name Terex, the implementation of the Dinky Toys Terex model, which was basically a modeled Euclid R15, caused problems. Terex did not operate any type of Euclid R15 and there threatened a legal action. To prevent this, Meccano Liverpool has prematurely stopped the production of the Terex models. That was very pity, because the model itself was very popular and profitable for Meccano Liverpool. It could still have lasted for years. No other company has ever made such a popular Dump truck. Jan Oldenhuis 19 September 2020.

I have to correct myself. Not all yellow / red lid boxes contain a white 'Tested By' control label, but as Bruce mentioned in # 6 of topic Boxes and Quality Inspection Stamps, only on models with lifting, winding or tilting mechanism or battery operated, which have been checked for proper operation. I did research on this at Vectis auction, who confirmed that. I will contribute that research in the mentioned topic. Jan Oldenhuis, 21 September 2020.

Jan, There was a third variation of the dia. 27mm. tyre, the plastic one fitted to the Lunar Rover, the Muir-Hill loaders etc... The reference is 027.

An example of how things can go wrong on the assembly line.This Euclid model has the 2 pads to stop the ratchet at the end for lifting the tipper, which were added on 26-1-1967 according to point 11 of the chassis drawing Job 13971.In view of this fact, the model should have inverted front wheels, which were mounted outwards from 23-5-1963 according to point 9 of assembly drawing 13970. In addition, the red Euclid logos and Stone, Ore, Earth transfers have been forgotten to apply on the tipper. It does have the reinforcement of 3 ribs on the underside of the tipper above the cabin, the plastic windows and grooved tires. The sleeve of the winding lever is also missing.Jan Oldenhuis, 6 October 2020.

Hi Jan, another example of asynchronous features which happened so often in the factory. In fact it is obvious that the dates as registrated in the changes list on the factory drawings seem rarely synchronous with what really happened in the factory. Even the separately produced parts, like the cabin/chassis unit and the tipping body may have been made on quite different moments and under different circumstances. One of my examples shows a tipping body colour which has a shade different from the rest of the model. I will not show a photograph of that because it's extremely difficult to represent that difference photographically in a natural way. Nevertheless, busy compiling my private Dinky calendar for next year at this moment, I came across the photo below, presenting a display view of my modest 965 collection. I like it and included it immediately. Kind regards, Jan W