There were regular competitions for Meccano model building announced in the magazine with big cash prizes. The copyright on all the entries became the property of the Meccano company and were often used later in instruction manuals or published in the Meccano magazine. Quite often competitions would be linked to an engineering company's own products such as cranes, diggers or loaders. This clearly made a link between "Engineering in Miniature" and the real world of engineering the former phrase was used for many years in Meccano advertising. At its peak of circulation in the1930s the magazine was selling 75,000 copies per month.

The outer pages of the Meccano Magazine carried advertising for many other manufacturers products such as Triang, Basset Lowke, Bayko, Dunlop Tyres, Brylcreem, Webley air guns, Britain's lead toys, Firework companies, biscuits, and many others. Meccano though always took the inside and back covers for their own products. In 1939 with the war approaching many of the advertisers withdrew and Meccano products took up most of the advertising space. One thing that never happened was advertising for products in direct competition with Meccano products. In post war years there were many pages of advertising for Triang products but never Triang Railways.

One of my favourite covers is shown on the left from April 1933

The second world war brought many changes to the publication but until the end of 1939 the magazine remained much the same as in pre--war days. However from January 1940 the amount of pages gradually deceased with much talk of shortages and a lot less advertising. In 1942 the magazine was reduced greatly in both content and size, from approximately A4 to a much smaller 210 mm x 140 mm and became just a shadow of its former self. After the second world war it remained at the reduced page size with little more content than during the war years. The paper and print quality was in these times of austerity little better than newsprint. Much of what was published at this time was pre war material and the models shown were generally much smaller and simpler. It was not until late 1952 that real improvements were made with more pages and printed on a much better quality, semi gloss paper. There were also many new products from the Meccano company to promote, such as new Dinky Toys and Hornby Dublo railways but regrettably not to many new Meccano parts. However the Meccano builder was fairly well catered for with many new models such as the "model of the month" series and many mechanisms many submitted by Meccano enthusiasts.Circulation picked up during the nineteen fifties but it never reached again the peak years of the 1930s. I subscribed to the MM from September 1955 until 1961 and have always considered it had a great influence on my interests.

In 1961 the page format size was increased but by then its sales were in a rapid decline and so was the Meccano content. Sadly too were the sales of Meccano sets and the other products of the Meccano company. In December 1963 Meccano Ltd. handed the magazine over to a publishing company, the first two issues January and February 1964 remained much as the previous year. However in March MM was re-launched in a larger format and became a magazine with very little actual Meccano content, more of a boys general hobby magazine.In July 1967 the magazine ceased publication but following negotiations between Meccano Ltd.and MAP (Model Aeronautical Press) the magazine was re-launched in January 1968. The Meccano content though was still produced in the main in Binns Road publicity office but this took up only a small part of the magazine.In 1973 it looked like the end of the magazine, with low sales it was no longer viable for an outside publisher and Meccano/Triang took the magazine back in house to avoid its closure. The magazine however was now a very poor shadow of its former self.