BAYKO in Cooke's of Manchester

I'm afraid it appears that Cooke's of Manchester is no longer trading, indeed, I suspect they were always a relatively modest operation. However, as we can see [below right] they were sufficiently savvy to include the world's first and finest plastic construction toy as part of their offering, even if it was only a small mention at the bottom of the last page.

To modern eyes, the fact that they were predominantly a sports equipment shop but sold toys as well may seem a little odd, but this was a relatively common combination in the past, and is not unknown today, perhaps stemming from the ambiguous sport/toy labelling of footballs or table tennis, for example.

I'm afraid I can add no more information about Cooke's of Manchester, except to say that the operated from : -

The prices quoted for the BAYKO sets applied between February, 1955 and the MECCANO takeover in 1959.

The catalogue was printed by Harry Williams (Ashton-Under-Lyne) Ltd., who also seem to have gone out of business.

If you can help with more information about Cooke's of Manchester, I'd love to hear from you…