Buco

A. Bucherer & Co. AG, which sold toy trains under the Buco name, followed an earlier firm founded by August Bucherer in 1919. After the earlier business failed in 1926, a new company was established that year. It made wooden advertising products, games, wooden animals, dolls’ houses and shop toys, among other goods. During and after the Second World War, when imported toys were difficult to obtain, the company began selling wooden clockwork train sets with aluminium rails and wooden sleepers.

Buco’s first rolling stock appeared in its 1947 catalog. The gauge 0 range developed beyond its early clockwork locomotive: an electric version of model 301 followed in 1948, and the four-axle electric locomotive 304 in 1949. Catalogs show the later range across gauges 0 and H0, with locomotives, rolling stock, track and accessories. In 1954 Buco added H0, offering a complete system with track, points and power supply. Most H0 models were plastic, and the track used a slanted centre conductor.

Buco’s H0 production ran from 1954 to 1957. That year Armin Wolf acquired unfinished stock and packaging, and further models were made from those materials. The last gauge 0 catalog appeared in 1956; the catalog archive also lists 1957 H0 novelties. These records distinguish the end of Buco’s own H0 production from the later manufacture and sale of models using Buco stock.