Minibrix were construction kits manufactured from 1935 to 1976 in the
UK. Developed in 1935, they enabled children to build their own miniature houses. Like the later and more famous construction toy,
Lego
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlockin ...
, Minibrix consisted primarily of interlocking bricks with moulded studs on the surface, but being invented before the availability of modern plastics they were made of hard rubber which had the necessary ability to deform under pressure to allow firm interlocking of studs and holes.
Minibrix were made by the Premo Rubber Company which traditionally made rubber shoe heels. Premo was a subsidiary of the I.T.S. Rubber Company, which had been founded in 1919 by Arnold Levy, and was located at Sandringham Road,
Petersfield
Petersfield is a market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is north of Portsmouth. The town has its own railway station on the Portsmouth Direct line, the mainline rail link connecting Portsmouth a ...
, Hampshire, England.
The origin of the Minibrix idea is unclear but Arnold may have seen the fibre-interlocking toy bricks of the early 1930s introduced by the Erector Company in America and the rubber interlocking bricks, called 'Bild-O-Brik' made in Pennsylvania, in 1934. However, the actual design of the British bricks and the other elements of the Minibrix system are thought to have been the work of a Mr Gilbert, an ITS engineer, and patents for the product were applied for on 5 July 1935 in the names of the Premo Rubber Company and Arnold Levy.
Two series of kits were available in different styles for making Tudor and Modern buildings, and the bases, roofs and lintels were all, like the bricks, made of rubber.
See also
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Kiddicraft
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page (20 August 1904 – 24 June 1957) was an English toy maker and inventor of Self-Locking Building Bricks, the predecessor of Lego bricks. He founded the Kiddicraft toy company.
Early life
Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page ...
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Erector set
Erector Set (trademark styled as "ERECTOR") was a brand of metal toy construction sets which were originally patented by Alfred Carlton Gilbert and first sold by his company, the Mysto Manufacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut in 1913. In ...
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Lego
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlockin ...
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Bayko
Bayko was a British building model
An architectural model is a type of scale model made to study aspects of an architectural design or to communicate design intent. They can be made from a variety of materials such as paper, plaster, plast ...
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Meccano
Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nuts ...
References
External links
Fred Smallbone and Malcolm Hanson's "Minibrix.com" pages - extensive history and referencePowerhouse museum in-depth article full of details
Construction toys
Products introduced in 1935
Toy brands
Toy companies of the United Kingdom
Defunct toy manufacturers
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