Bayko builder kits

[www.doyouremember.co.uk]

These sets were bricks that were laid just like the real thing with a water-soluble mortar and even 'scaffolding' that slotted into holes in the baseboard. Bayko was invented by Charles Plimpton, a plastics engineer from Liverpool. It was originally sold in Britain and was soon sold throughout the British Commonwealth and became sold world wide from 1934 and 1967. The company was sold to Meccano in 1960 who stopped producing it in 1967.The name derived from Bakelite, a fairly cheap commercial plastic that was originally used to manufacture many of the parts. Bayko was one of the world's earliest plastic toys and could be said to be the precursor to Lego, who only made wooden bricks until 1940.

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[Richard1978]

Re: Bayko builder kits

My primary school had one of these sets, the finished houses looked very "Metroland".

[Emettman]

Re: Bayko builder kits

These sets were bricks that were laid just like the real thing with a water-soluble mortar...

Err, no. That was another system entirely. The Bayko had plastic blocks marked with lots of bricks which slid down the scaffolding poles.
Confirmation can be seen here: http://www.architoys.net/toys/toypages/bayko.html
The same site has a note on the Brick-and-mortar method: http://www.architoys.net/toys/toys_03.html

The company was sold to Meccano in 1960 who stopped producing it in 1967.

A bit outside DYR's remit then, strictly, though sets would still have been around and played with in the early 70's.

Bayko has a good number of collectors even (or especially!) for the early dark-coloured sets.
Numerous items are available on eBay.

[anubis68]

Re: Bayko builder kits

I can remember a building set which you made the whole brick wall out of shaker maker type stuff then built the building with the parts that you had made can't remember what it was called though think it might have began with a L