Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Toy, Mechanical |
Caption |
Toy Steam Engine |
Description |
Mamod toy model steam engine. Made in England. c.1975. Played with by Robert and Richard Hantge, sons of the donor. Fuel pellets could be purchased at Hub Hobby, 6410 Penn Ave S, Richfield MN. Model was attached to a wooden board because it became very hot. The Mamod company is a British toy manufacturer specializing in building live steam models. The company was founded in 1937 in Birmingham in the British midlands by Geoffrey Malins. The name is a contraction of 'Malins Models'. The first models produced were of stationary steam engines, the company later also creating models of road rollers, traction engines and steam cars. These models were aimed at the toy market, so were simple to operate and ran at low boiler pressures for safety but were not accurate scale models. The TE1/TE1a traction engine remains the most popular model Mamod ever produced, selling no fewer than 486 thousand models up to 1996. The most popular stationary engine was the Minor, selling roughly 245,000 models, until its retirement in 1979. A characteristic of most Mamod models is the use of simple but effective oscillating cylinder(s), usually single-acting. These engines either run unregulated (in the smaller models) or have a simple reversing mechanism to alter the cutoff, thus controlling the power/speed and direction of the engine. Early models had single or multi-wick spirit burners while in the 1970s the company changed to hexamine solid fuel which came in tablet form and provided low heat and a relatively safe form of firing. |
Catalog Number |
2012-0025-001 |
Search Terms |
Toys Engines Models Steam engines |
Subjects |
Toys Engines Steam engines Models |
People |
Hantge, Robert Hantge, Richard |