When you were a kid, your mother probably made you throw out all that neat stuff that littered your room - like chipped marbles, bent hula hoops, dolls or action figures with missing arms, and bubble gum comics.

Too bad, because bubble gum comics (and wrappers) are collectible!

Of course, as my sister has remarked, "You can't save everything," but bubble gum stuff takes up so little space, as long as you don't save the bubble gum. Over time it generally decomposes into a gooey mess anyway that will stain even wax-coated paper, so most collectors dispose of the gum as soon as they purchase it.

Though people around the world have chewed different types of tree saps and resins since ancient times, what we would today consider chewing gum was invented in 1869. We can blame Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (yes, that Santa Anna - you know, the Alamo) for introducing chicle, the sap of some tropical American trees, to New Yorker Thomas Adams. Adams had been trying to find a substitute for the rubber in car tires. Instead, he found that chicle created a better chew.

Bubble gum took a little longer to perfect. Early forays into bubble gum formulas were not entirely successful until 1928. That is when Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company, came up with the formula for what Fleer would market as Dubble Bubble. The story goes that the only food dye available at Fleer was pink, and that's why Dubble Bubble and almost all bubble gums since have been pink.

Fleer was the first company to sell bubble gum wrapped in comics, and their Dubble Bubble was the leading brand when, in 1947, the Topps Company introduced Bazooka Bubble Gum. In 1953, Topps began wrapping each piece of gum in their new Bazooka Joe character comics. Kids could collect the comics and mail them in for free or nominal-cost premiums. Bazooka Joe was a big hit, and Topps' Bazooka brand has reigned supreme ever since.

Bubble Gum Comics (see website below) estimates that there are over 1000 Fleer Funnies and over 1500 Bazooka Joe comics, not counting variations. A few other bubble gum brands, like Blony and Swell, also included comics, and over the years various companies have sold bubble gum in wrappers that could be sent in for premiums. These are all sought after by collectors.

Of course, we're not talking about values approaching those of regular comics. Most bubble gum comics and wrappers are, at present, worth no more than a few dollars each, but that could change.

In 2007, former-Disney CEO Michael Eisner led a consortium in a buyout of the Topps Company. Eisner would like to turn Bazooka Joe into an entertainment (movies, etc.) and marketing giant. If Eisner is successful, who knows how hot the secondary markets could become for early bubble gum collectibles.

If you'd like to learn more about bubble gum collectibles, check out the resources listed below:

Books

"Bubblemania: A Chewy History of Bubble Gum," by Lee Wardlaw (Author), Sandra Forrest (Illustrator)
http://tinyurl.com/ywyvtd

"Chewing Gum: The Fortunes of Taste," by Micheal Redclift
http://tinyurl.com/2bef6r

Websites

The Bubblegum Comic Collection
http://www.geocities.com/myxzlpyx/bazookajoe/index.htm
Lots of pics of personal collection. Check out the suggestions for storage.

Bubble Gum Comics
http://www.bubblegum-comics.com/index.html
http://www.bubblegum-comics.com/Introduction.html
Really nice site covers personal collection. Lots of pics and info.

Candy Favorites
http://www.candyfavorites.com/shop/catalog-gum-history.php
Article: "A Brief History of Chewing Gum"

The Candy Wrapper Museum
http://www.candywrappermuseum.com/mrt.html
Check out this site if you'd like to see "Mr. T" and "Where's the Beef " bubble gum wrappers. (Bet you didn't know they existed!)

National Park Service
The following link brings up a PDF file.
http://www.nps.gov/jeff/forteachers/upload/bubblegum2.pdf Just for fun: script for "The Bubble Gum Trial"!

Reference for Business
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/61/The-Topps-Company-Inc.html
Detailed history of the Topps Company up to 1999.

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2007-11-04-topps-eisner_N.htm
News article: "Eisner Has His New Mickey: It's Bazooka Joe"