In the words of the chap I bought this from back in March 2004:

This Meccano Display came from my in-laws Hardware Store (E.K. Owens Hardware Store, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, USA) just before they sold the store and retired 4 years ago. A true and loyal employee purchased the business and was interested only in the new store stock and fixtures.

A treasure trove lay hidden on the second floor where store displays & advertising was stored in large drawers and on the old oak shelving units. The second floor of the store was the "Toy Store" and this area was closed to customers over 50 years ago. Literally nothing was thrown away. Much of the advertising dated back to 1905 when the store was founded. My wife's parents were the second owners of the business.

I removed 4 large van loads and two 16' trailer loads of displays, advertising, & cabinets. Needless to say, this liquidation project has taken a few years and eBay was a Godsend, coming at the right time to get these awesome displays into the right collectors hands. Our prize was sold back in 2000, when a prewar Lionel Train Window Display cardboard litho sold for $35,100.00. Several other Lionel, American Flyer, Keystone Riding Toys, Parker Bros. Games, Other toys, Hunting & Fishing surfaced in this old store and have sold in the thousands of dollars. and there is still more!

this Meccano and sevreal other interesting toy advertising lithos & displays were stored high up ona shelving unit. I am offering the unit as it was found and no parts or pieces have been removed (despite continuous offers to break out several of the contents).

There is a remnant of a pricing sheet glued on the inside of the lid with, but this has mostly disintegrated and the shreds are in the bottom of the case. The lid has a removable panel to access the contents on the display. Meticulous attention had been given setting up the display and all of the original tags seem to be intact. all of the parts were tied to the velvet panel with black thread (very brittle now). Obviously, not all Meccano parts would fit onto the display board, but probably the most popular or sought after ones were chosen. The divisions inside the cabinet seem logical to the inventory and I have no reason to doubt the originality of this cabinet. Also the spacing of the display board and the gap between the board and the old glass works perfectly for the narrow Meccano parts. Even included is a second varnish or water transfer of the gold Meccano label (my guess was for the glass in case the original broke).

For photo purposes and shipping reasons I took the original glass out of the frame. This is old and probably original due to the color, bubbles and imperfections.

The glass survives to this day. It is incredibly thin - measuring just under 70thou at the edge. that's about 1.8mm which could be the nominal thickness for standard 2mm picture glass?

I'm revising the date back a year to 1915 for precisely the same reason that Kendrick gives in his gallery.

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