paul463 wrote:Guy's the term Meccano Af has been used before but not sure what it means. Is it the company who distributed the toys in France?
Hi Paul,
yes Meccano was the French Toy Distribution arm of General Mills, who were the holding group behind Palitoy.
General Mills bought many international toy companies during the 70's to allow them to free distribute toy licences internationally. The most well known license to be distributed through their network was Star Wars, which was distributed by The Palitoy Company in the UK (under the name Palitoy Company, it included several UK companies including Palitoy, Denys Fisher, Chad Valley, Airfix and Parker Brothers), Meccano in France, Clipper in Holland, PlayMix in Northern Europe, Harbert in Italy, PBP/Poch in Spain, Parker/General Mills in Germany for example.
Most of the toy lines were heavily influenced by Kenner which was the US toy distribution channel, but Action Force was the slight exception as it was a tie with a non-General Mills company, Hassenfeld Brothers (Hasbro), which was born through its Action Man relationship with GI-Joe before General Mills purchased Palitoy.
Action Force could not be distributed in the US, because of Hasbro's introduction of GI-Joe 3 3/4", but as GI-Joe was not distibuted in Europe, it allowed General Mills to distribute Action Force through it's european domestic channels, in this case Meccano.
Bit of a long one, but I hope that helps
Dave.
