BAYKO in the U.S.A.

Thanks to Andrew Lance of the HORNBY Railways Collectors Club for help with this.

This is a strange document in some ways, though it has a standard four page format, created by a simple vertical fold, producing a small, though rather tall, booklet. It dates from February, 1962 according to its reference code.

There is absolutely no doubt that this document was America bound - it clearly says “U.S.A.” in the top right hand corner of the front page, and all the retail prices are quoted in dollars.

The BAYKO entry is towards the bottom of page 3, i.e. the right hand of the two centre pages. As you can see clearly, if you click anywhere on that page to launch a larger image of the BAYKO section, the BAYKO entry is quite stark, only mentioning the sets available [and sets #15 and #14C which are “Coming Soon”]. To me this suggests that the American market was new rather than established.

There is an additional, rather tantalising phrase, immediately below the BAYKO logo, which refers to the earlier versions of BAYKO, though, of course, there is no proof that this possible Plimpton history was American based : -

The strangeness, alluded to above, continued through two further things : -

A similar document, dated some three months earlier, has a printers code which suggests 200,000 copies were printed, whereas this document suggests that only 1,500 copies were printed. Of course this could have been a simple typo!

The manufacturer's address, at the bottom of page 4 [the back page] is MECCANO, France rather than MECCANO U.K.  I'm afraid I've absolutely no idea from which side of La Manche the DINKY TOYS and / or BAYKO were to be supplied - but, I'll try to find out…

This 1963 Catalogue bears the legend [bottom right] “English N.P.” [N.P. = No Prices], and the price lists are certainly absent, and, to judge by the tight, pristine staple, always were. Other than that, the catalogue is identical to the standard English language version.

Reference no. “72884/06” [right, bottom left] includes 'Country Code', “06”, used for all 'priceless' English language documents.

This document was acquired, via eBay, from the U.S.A., though whether because it was used in the American market, or was was one of the 'huddled masses' imported by its owner, we'll never know.

In other words, I can only suggest that this was used for the U.S.A., but have no means of proving it.