A SET of pre-Dinky toys made by Meccano in 1933 made a world record price of £12,650 when they were sold by a North-East auction house.

They were part of the Modelled Miniature series that were the forerunners of thousands of toys that were to be called Dinky and were made a year before Frank Hornby came up with the famous name. They are extremely rare and very hard to find in good condition.

At the same sale, a 28 series delivery van made the same year and advertising Ensign Films made £4,717, while seven 28 series vans made a total of £26,335.

The toys were being sold as the first part of the Zegel collection, one of the largest collections of toys in the world to go under the hammer and which could ultimately make more than £1m.

"It was a life's work of collecting and is certainly one of the largest collection ever to come up for sale," said Bryan Goodall, chairman of the Vectis Auction group, which is based on Teesside.

This first part of the 50,000-piece collection, which came from the US, includes the largest number of diecast toys ever to be offered for sale, including thousands of Dinky and Corgi toys.

Nearly two thousand lots of the toys went under the hammer on Wednesday and drew bids from dealers and collectors all over the world.

Collected by Ferdinand Zegel, a physicist who died last year, the collection also includes 30,000 rare die cast toys from makers such as Matchbox and Tekno.