MECCANO Era BAYKO Packaging Anomalies

MECCANO took over BAYKO in 1959 and immediately set about retooling the entire product range.

Plimpton Engineering's legacy included large quantities of unsold sets and loose product...

...in fact, when MECCANO launched their new parts range in August 1962, they still had quantifies of #0X and #1X sets as well as [unspecified] loose Plimpton era product available. The conversion sets may have been kept available as a service to previous customers, but the loose stock points to there having been plenty available at the takeover.

Immediately after the take-over, it is more than likely that there would also have been significant quantities of raw materials to be used up.

Arguably the continuation of the production of Plimpton era BAYKO by MECCANO looks fairly structured if Mick Burgess' May, 1960 Price List is anything to go by...

Whatever the reason, and regardless of which side of the takeover that the manufacture actually took place, MECCANO certainly processed Plimpton era style parts through their own packing systems...

...resulting in various examples of Plimpton era parts in MECCANO era packaging.

The first image [above, left] looks, for all the world, like a normal pack of Screwdrivers, but the Screwdrivers inside are the standard Plimpton era green, not MECCANO era grey.

The image [right] perhaps helps shed some light on this process...

...it clearly shows that an improvised label was used, either in haste or, perhaps, because the small quantity didn't warrant setting in motion the full type-setting procedure.

The swapped image [when you roll your mouse over] clearly demonstrates that the pack contents really are Plimpton era Windows.

This confusion wasn't restricted to packed product...

...the earliest MECCANO era BAYKO leaflet showed a similarly confusion of product types.

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