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Part 133/a: Corner brackets

133	Corner Bracket, 1½''	1921	-	8	8	4	N°10
133a	Corner Bracket, 1''	1931	-		0	2	N°9

The parts

The 1½'' corner bracket was introduced in 1921, first announced in the September 1921 Meccano Magazine.  It was probably referenced in the March 1921 issue as a reply to a suggestion.

It has a clever design, including not only the diagonal holes at root-2 spacing, but a strange T-shaped hole in the centre of the long side allowing half-inch spacing to all the other holes on the part.  This allows it to be used to space out interesting gear ratios as well as be used for its obvious 90 degree bracing function.

Part 133a, the 1" corner bracket, was not suggested until December 1930, as a smaller version of part 127, the simple bell crank, and it was finally announced in the September 1931 issue.  Because of this late arrival of the part, it didn't make it into the outfits of the time, nor the following derivative lettered outfits of 1934.  It finally arrived in 1937, but only in outfits 9 and 10, and so is much less common than such a handy part should be.

Chronological variations

The brackets have appeared in most of the standard colours, except that the smaller part 133a of course missed out on nickel plating.  It is likely, however, that there are a very small number around which could have been special ordered in a nickel finish before 1941.

The colour schemes are not quite as obvious later on.  Part 133a followed a common small part sequence of green / nickel / zinc through the 1960s, but the larger part 133 went directly from light green to yellow (matching the flat plates).  It went to zinc in 1970, I think.  But I might be wrong...

Another unusual feature of part 133 appears to be its post-war stamping.  Unlike almost all other parts it is stamped Meccano England rather than Meccano Made in England, even during the medium green era. 

Most other parts didn't use this stamping until around 1970, but this shows us that we have to be a little bit careful reading dates into stampings.

The blueprints above, however, show the larger Corner Bracket with this unusual stamping. Originally drawn on 12th July 1921, this part went through the following changes:

16/12/21:	Marking added (patent 686112)
25/11/31:	Patent marking removed
9/7/45:	Holes respecified
25/8/45:	Made in England added
1/7/47:	Thickness changed from 1/32'' (0.031'') to 0.026''
21/2/50:	Marking punch memo altered

The smaller part 133a was first drawn on 10th March 1931, but has very similar dates for the stamping and thickness changes.

The key new information here is the change in thickness. There were many new drawings (and re-drawings) made immediately post-war, many of which appear a little pointless. But a change in thickness is not something we had previously noticed on the large angle bracket. Unusually, there is even a side view shown on the blueprint for the smaller part 133a. We can, however, see that the Meccano England stamping was specifically planned for part 133.

The original blueprints for this part can be seen by clicking here.  

Variations and oddities

None known

Dealer spare parts boxes

The envelope to the right contains half a dozen early post-war parts (although these envelopes were used for small parts pre-war as well).  The yellow box with a light green label shows parts dating from between 1958 and 1964, in light green.

Individual part numbers

Part numbers for the parts on this page are as follows:    Unique part numbers
For identification, each variation has been given a suffix to the main Meccano part number. These suffixes consist of a two-character code for the colour, and if there are many variations, a further number and sometimes letter code to identify each variation. See the bottom of the 'Parts' page for further details.

You don't need to worry what the codes are, just click on any one for a photograph.

The button above turns on and off the display of DMS numbers (where they are known). The DMS (Development of the Meccano System, Hauton and Hindemarsh) published in 1972 and added to in 75 and 82, suggested part numbers for every variation of every Meccano part. These numbers aren't perfect, but they are recognised and also referenced in the EMP (Encyclopedia of Meccano Parts, Don Blakeborough).

Description	from	133	133a
Nickel plated ¹	21	.ni	.ni
Early red (pea red)	26	.re
Dark green	27	.dg	.dg
Gold	34	.go	.go
Medium green (pre-war stamping)	34	.mg1	.mg1
Medium green	48	.mg	.mg
Light green	58	.lg	.lg
Nickel plated	64		.ni1
Yellow ³	64	.ye	.ye
Zinc plated ²	66	.zn	.zn
Dark blue	78	.db	.db
Dark yellow ³	78		.dy
Brass plated (Meccakit 200 and 300, France only) †	74-80		.br
Zinc plated	85	.zn1	.zn1
Dark grey (501 Sky Hunter) †	93-94	.gy
White (Dynamic 4065) †	93-94		.wh
French yellow (Dynamic) †	93-97		.fy
Red (Evolution) †	96-99		.re
Light orange (4850 Space Base) †	97-99	.or
Matt black (0060 6 x 4 Machine) †	98-00	.mb
Olive green (0525 Spitfire) †	05-08		.am
Mid brown (0530 King Ghidora) †	06		.bn
		ALL	ALL

Note: ¹ Although part 133a, the 1" corner bracket, was not manufactured until 1931 it may still appear in nickel plate as it would have been possible to special order this part in nickel.  It will be very rare, though, as it did not appear in any outfits until 1937 and so would not have been supplied in a special order nickel outfit.

² Part 133a was zinc plated from around 1966/67, part 133 not until 1970.

³ Part 133a is found in the Highway and Crane Multikits, and so is found in yellow from 1973 and dark yellow from 1978 (as part 312), also in dark yellow in outfit 7956 'Dragster'

Please send us pictures of missing parts! Hints and tips for pictures
Take a picture of the part in very good light, preferably on a plain yellow background, without a flash but with a tripod.
Ideally, trim the picture to about 150 pixels per inch of the Meccano part (unless the part is particularly big or small), save it as a reasonably good quality jpg file with a filename of exactly the part number, for example 19b.ni1.jpg, and email it to us by clicking on 'Contact us' at the top of the page. Thanks!

• A greyed-out box shows that no part exists for that colour combination.
• Part number codes with a green background have an attached picture of the part, just click once on the code to show a photograph of that part in a separate window.
• Parts marked "†" were temporary or economy parts, or existed only within specific themed outfits. The previous part continued throughout or afterwards.

Further information

Douglas Laing      (at 10:02am, Thu 13th Oct, 11)

I have an example of part 133 in dark red. It is stamped MECCANO Fabrique en Angleterre. Provenance unknown, it came in an ebay lot of drg parts.

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