BAYKO Adverts in The Local Rags

For the uninitiated, 'Local Rags', is a less that respectful term for local newspapers, be they daily, nightly or weekly. I make a distinction between those newspapers with a regional distribution and their humbler small town equivalents which are shown here.

There is a 'tradition', not just for the toy market, of aligning individual retailers' adverts to the manufacturers own offering, the following script from Mr. MECCANO's pre-Christmas Letter to Retailers, in 1960, is clear : -

HELP!!! - Before I go on, can I please make a plea for your help. Simple common sense says that the logistics are against my circumnavigating the British Isles - or beyond? - in search of the illusive local adverts. You, however, could help by visiting your local library and rifling through back copies or microfilmed versions of your local papers, almost certainly restricted to the 1950s, though possibly also the early 1960s. I know, it sounds like fun!!! I also know that the whole process should take just a couple of hours - less for weekly newspapers!

If you can help acquire one or more adverts from your local paper for me, with full details of where and when they appeared, I'll happily give full attribution on the site - I'll even repay the copying charges if you wish - and you'll have put your home town on the BAYKO map!

To encourage you, David Poole has found some adverts in the 'Bath and Wilts Chronicle', which are shown below, which means a strike rate of three out of three for the local rags which have been researched to date!!!

In the mean time, I have now have several adverts to show you - please help boost this section if you can.

These images are all from the 'Bath & Wilts Evening Chronicle' and are shown courtesy of the Bath Central Library, thanks to the efforts of David Poole.

These adverts all appeared in the 'Stoke Evening Sentinel', the main evening paper for 'The Potteries'.

All the adverts above are for local toy shops and department stores which had the good sense to mention the world's first and finest plastic construction toy.

This is the only true BAYKO advert [left].

The images are all shown courtesy of the Stoke-on-Trent Central Library.