Simply, BAYKO is an architectural toy and can be used, depending on the quantity of BAYKO and the breadth of ambition of the modeller, to build a wide range of buildings from a simple shed to a Skyscraper “limited only by the child's imagination”, as early literature said. |
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Painfully, it has to be admitted that LEGO was/is infinitely more versatile, but BAYKO wins hands down on realism. |
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The 'play value' of linking BAYKO to HORNBY and DINKY toys wasn't lost on Plimpton's marketeers, forging a link with MECCANO long before the take-over. |
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The ‘Toyman’ articles in 'MECCANO Magazine' epitomised this… |
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Partly because of its period of origin, BAYKO is usually thought to be in scale with O-Gauge model railways, though it's unlikely to satisfy the rivet counters. [Does anything?] However, there's definitely another perspective… |
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…personally, for 'public buildings', like railway stations, which are usually much more grandiose than domestic ones, I think BAYKO better matches O-O Gauge. I am in the process - an embarrassingly long one to date - of building a modular O-O Gauge BAYKO model railway which can be made up to to a full scale mile… |
…69 feet 6 inches or 21.2 metres!… |
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…so far I'm almost halfway there! |
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One extremely useful fluke, should you choose to embark on a comprehensive O-O Gauge BAYKO model railway - five BAYKO Bases lengthways, or seven BAYKO Bases crossways, [i.e. 35 bricks in total] is exactly ⅔
metre. Straight PECO SETRACK comes in multiples of ⅙ metre, so can be made to fit absolutely perfectly - well to within 0.0125% anyway!!! Surely even the rivet counters can't better that, can they‽ |
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Like many of the world's most successful toys, BAYKO was intended to be expandable through repeat purchases both of conversion sets and spare parts. This would have been a major revenue stream for the company. |
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That way you could build almost anything that took your fancy - “limited only by your pocket” as the BAYKO literature perhaps should have said! |
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The instruction books BAYKO provided with each set showed a wide range of models which could be built with the set. |
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Today's BAYKO collectors / modellers generally enjoy producing original designs for the models they build… |
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…the occasional masochist even copies real life… |
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…though few people would contemplate what Leo did! |
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The model to the right is Leo's truly magnificent BAYKO model of the Empire State Building… |
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…that's Leo on the right of the group. |
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Plenty of people today still collect and play with BAYKO - why not join them? - join the BAYKO Collectors Club! |
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The basic BAYKO rubric could hardly be simpler, making getting started easier, and then progressively more fun as you try to get round those rules! |
Below here are links to related info : - |
Click on any of the links below for related information. |
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