
Bakke finmekaniske verksted [Bakke Fine Mechanical Workshop] (Bakke)
Description
Producer of tin plate trains and cars from 1946-1962 in Oslo, Norway
The company was founded in 1946 by Reidar Werner Bakke. R.W. Bakke was born in 1921 in Oslo and graduated from Kristiania Vocational School in 1938. He then got an apprenticeship as a turner at Brødrene Sundt Verktøimaskinfabrik. Later, he got a trade certificate as a turner and toolmaker. His new company was established on the second floor of a backyard building at Storgata 26 in Oslo. Bakke started as a subcontractor for other workshops, but soon started the production of mechanical toys, which were all designed by Bakke himself. He also made all the punching and press tools that were needed. The toys produced were 0 gauge train sets, trucks, ladder trucks, passenger cars and tractors. They were usually fitted with clockwork motors. They were packed in cardboard boxes made by Eskefabrikken in Møllergata, Oslo and which had covers depicting high-speed express engines, working crawler tractors and roaring fire engines – as was usual in those days, the pictures on the box lids were much grander than what was actually in the box.
The toys were usually produced in series of 3,000 items and were sold nationwide through an agent company. Often the year's production was already ordered in February. In total Bakke produced circa 200,000 toys. The workshop had four permanent employees and in addition, a lot of assembly work was done by outside workers at home. Bakke established his own painting workshop in the nearby Vognmannsgata. When the parts were to be painted, they were transported there with hand trolleys.
Bakke’s considerable success in the 1950’s was partly due to the fact that until the end of that decade there had been a ban on the import of toys. When that ban was lifted, together with the rapidly growing popularity of toys made of plastic, resulting in much greater competition, the company got into financial difficulties and was wound up in 1962.
Bakke thereupon got a job at Tandberg’s Radiofabrikk, a radio factory for which he was a designer and buyer until it closed in 1978. He then studied teaching, and worked as a teacher in crafts and industrial subjects in a school until his retirement in1990.He died in 2013.
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