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I'd like to see a picture of the "Mysterious Walking Giant". 195.159.10.101 09:02, November 6, 2006 (UTC)
Could someone who knows clarify why the thing was patented in 1901 but invented in 1911? Cheers. -- 198.128.26.82 ( talk) 01:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The metal construction set that was patented in 1901 was Meccano. Meccano started being sold in the US in 1909, so the Erector sets' feature that they could be assembled and disassembled was not exactly unique.
The interrelationships between Meccano Ltd in the UK, Meccano Inc. in the US, and Gilbert and Lionel seems to be a little muddy. Lionel may or may not have produced Meccano's first 4V electric motor, and may or may not have owned Meccano's US factory in New Jersey, and may or may not have been the reason why the factory was sold to Gilbert in around 1928 (to raise cash?), and may or may not be the reason why the factory had stopped producing trains (because Lionel also made trains), leaving Gilbert ... manufacturing Meccano as well as their own system?
I've seen it said that Meccano-based sets may have been quietly sold under the Gilbert Erector name for some time, but given the strongly patriotic "American" branding of Erector, I suppose that it's conceivable that if the owners had dropped "real Erector" and switched to sets based on a "foreign" product, they might not have felt inclined to mention it.
This all seems really twisty - at some point, the people who owned the Meccano brandnames are then supposed to have bought the Erector brandname, too, so the Meccano factory in Calais, France, currently produces "modern" Meccano sets under both the Meccano and Erector names, depending on which territory the sets are to be sold in.
There's an "American Meccano" website at http://www.usmeccano.com , but even the site owner seems to have trouble unravelling the exact sequence of events ( http://www.usmeccano.com/questions/questions.htm )! I'm not going to pretend to know what really happened, if if anyone out there knows, it'd be great if they could fill the rest of us in. ErkDemon ( talk) 01:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I have made a first cut at reworking the article, but it needs a lot more work. As I first found it, the article was a hogepodge of poorly-organized random claims, almost completely uncited. There is still very little description of the product itself, with the unwarranted implicit assumption that "everyone knows" what it is already. Significant points, like Erector's often-promoted ability to make a strong steel structural "girder" from 4 pieces of stamped sheet metal, are completely unmentioned. There are few clues about what kinds or complexity of assemblages could be produced. Surely, there exist more photos to illustrate what the article is talking about.
The history section needs to focus on the Erector line itself, and not try to duplicate coverage that belongs in the article on A.C. Gilbert Company or its founder. Most of the article is completely uncited. Reliable sources exist, and should be added. Reify-tech ( talk) 17:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
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> "Erector remains a very versatile constructional medium. Almost any mechanical device can be built with this system, from structures, to complex working cranes, automatic gearboxes or clocks. It is frequently used to prototype new ideas and inventions. Model realization using Erector is limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of the builder."
I dunno man, seems kinda endorsement-ish to me... should we remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FailSandwich ( talk • contribs) 03:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Erector Set article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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It is requested that an image or photograph of classic Erector sets and simple to complex constructed assemblies be
included in this article to
improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific
media request template where possible.
The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites. |
I'd like to see a picture of the "Mysterious Walking Giant". 195.159.10.101 09:02, November 6, 2006 (UTC)
Could someone who knows clarify why the thing was patented in 1901 but invented in 1911? Cheers. -- 198.128.26.82 ( talk) 01:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
The metal construction set that was patented in 1901 was Meccano. Meccano started being sold in the US in 1909, so the Erector sets' feature that they could be assembled and disassembled was not exactly unique.
The interrelationships between Meccano Ltd in the UK, Meccano Inc. in the US, and Gilbert and Lionel seems to be a little muddy. Lionel may or may not have produced Meccano's first 4V electric motor, and may or may not have owned Meccano's US factory in New Jersey, and may or may not have been the reason why the factory was sold to Gilbert in around 1928 (to raise cash?), and may or may not be the reason why the factory had stopped producing trains (because Lionel also made trains), leaving Gilbert ... manufacturing Meccano as well as their own system?
I've seen it said that Meccano-based sets may have been quietly sold under the Gilbert Erector name for some time, but given the strongly patriotic "American" branding of Erector, I suppose that it's conceivable that if the owners had dropped "real Erector" and switched to sets based on a "foreign" product, they might not have felt inclined to mention it.
This all seems really twisty - at some point, the people who owned the Meccano brandnames are then supposed to have bought the Erector brandname, too, so the Meccano factory in Calais, France, currently produces "modern" Meccano sets under both the Meccano and Erector names, depending on which territory the sets are to be sold in.
There's an "American Meccano" website at http://www.usmeccano.com , but even the site owner seems to have trouble unravelling the exact sequence of events ( http://www.usmeccano.com/questions/questions.htm )! I'm not going to pretend to know what really happened, if if anyone out there knows, it'd be great if they could fill the rest of us in. ErkDemon ( talk) 01:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I have made a first cut at reworking the article, but it needs a lot more work. As I first found it, the article was a hogepodge of poorly-organized random claims, almost completely uncited. There is still very little description of the product itself, with the unwarranted implicit assumption that "everyone knows" what it is already. Significant points, like Erector's often-promoted ability to make a strong steel structural "girder" from 4 pieces of stamped sheet metal, are completely unmentioned. There are few clues about what kinds or complexity of assemblages could be produced. Surely, there exist more photos to illustrate what the article is talking about.
The history section needs to focus on the Erector line itself, and not try to duplicate coverage that belongs in the article on A.C. Gilbert Company or its founder. Most of the article is completely uncited. Reliable sources exist, and should be added. Reify-tech ( talk) 17:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Erector Set. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:10, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
> "Erector remains a very versatile constructional medium. Almost any mechanical device can be built with this system, from structures, to complex working cranes, automatic gearboxes or clocks. It is frequently used to prototype new ideas and inventions. Model realization using Erector is limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of the builder."
I dunno man, seems kinda endorsement-ish to me... should we remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FailSandwich ( talk • contribs) 03:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)