Tweed <
usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/e2a899bc-6815-41ed-bb3f-bb8c7ee8d475?shareToken=660e4bab9545b3f104d708568f48277a
Not mentioned there is the astute business move by Sydney Pritchard that helped him build up the company. In the years immediately
after WW2 Meccano were preparing to restart supply of their Hornby Dublo
train sets that had started to appear in 1938 but whose production was
halted during the war years. Pritchard approached Meccano with a better design of coupling than the pre war version that allowed semiautomatic
coupling and uncoupling ,Meccano were impressed enough they wanted to buy
the rights to the design but instead Pritchard licensed them to produce it
and pay a farthing per coupling. Might not sound a lot but each engine,
coach and truck
has two so that was a halfpenny per vehicle and with even the basic sets
having an engine and three coaches or trucks Peco were making at least 2d
for every set Meccano sold. Again doesn?t sound a lot but during the
1950?s the market also included the Empire Countries of
Australia,NewZealand and Canada so it all added up. Although never as
widely sold British Trix also adopted a very similar design ,so similar
that Peco took them to court and won so then Trix also had to pay
royalties. They also retained the right to sell the couplings themselves
but only as an accessory , they still do as some people prefer them to the
ugly design used by the present day incarnation of Hornby and swap them
over.
One innovation they have started doing to help the bottom line and use some
of the assets of the now not open daily visitor attraction are tours of the factory with cost ranging from œ40 to œ120 depending on duration and add
ons like a meal in the ( static) Pullman car on site.
That?s quite a modern thing for a company that was so staid they avoided
having a website till 2018 preferring people to visit retailers or read magazines.
GH
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