Popularity
Frank Hornby launched the Meccano Guild in 1919, to encourage boys of all ages -as well as early clubs- to become part of a central organisation, which oversaw club formation, and set guidelines for club proceedings. The Meccano Magazine was used as a means to keep Guild clubs informed of each other's activities (as well as encourage the sales of Meccano).
The International Society of Meccanomen was founded in 1989 in England, nine years after the Liverpool factory closed. This organization is considered the modern replacement of the Guild system and now has some 600 members in over 30 countries.
Today, over a hundred years since its inception, there are thousands of Meccano enthusiasts worldwide, many clubs and hundreds of websites covering Meccano history, model building instructions and nostalgia. Individuals and companies worldwide still manufacture parts, some long out of production. There are annual Meccano exhibitions around the world, notably in France (at a different venue around May each year) and at Skegness in England (around July every year). Many notable shows also take place in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand each year to name a few.
Publications devoted fully or in part to Meccano included Meccano Magazine from 1916 to 1981, and numerous Special Model Leaflets aimed at serious enthusiasts, on how to construct very large, complex models and machines. Some models use many more parts than an entire Set 10. The original large models from the 1930s model leaflets are called the Meccano Super Models, often popular at Meccano and other model engineering exhibitions and sometimes used as nostalgic showpieces by retailers. Modern dedicated publications include: Constructor Quarterly, The International Meccanoman and the ModelPlans series of instructions. These feature large model instructions and ideas for enthusiasts. There are also a myriad of club-generated periodicals, featuring Meccano content and keeping enthusiasts in touch.
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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)