Meccano Colours - 1 - Strips

Meccano Colours - 1 - Strips

Meccano Colours and Finishes

Meccano has been produced in a bewildering array of different colours and finishes over the years so this blog is a quick reference to these. Please also remember that if parts are left out in natural light for a period of time they will fade to a completely different shade. Additionally, the colour matching between batches of painted parts was often rather poor leading to many different shades of the same colour.

The three shades of green shown, from the top, are light green (from late 1950s to early 1960s), reproduction green, and mid green from the late 1940s to the late 1950s.

Next in this section, the gold coloured parts from the 1930s-1940s - (Meccano France also used this colour in the 1970s)  there's not many of the early parts left in good condition. The UK yellow parts were seen in the 1970s crane sets, and finally dark blue from the last Liverpool late 1970s sets.

Finally, the last 4 are, from the top, nickel plated from the early 1920s. These are a slightly brown shade when compared to zinc parts. Next silver painted from the late 1950s / early 1960s. The paint flaked off these easily, so this was replaced by the most common finish, zinc, from the late 1960s until mid 1970s. Lastly a white painted part, which was from the late 1970s space sets.