Fleer
The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubble gum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until 1989. Fleer originally developed a bubble gum formulation called '' Blibber-Blubber'' in 1906. While this gum could be blown into bubbles, in other respects it was vastly inferior to regular chewing gum, and Blibber-Blubber was never marketed to the public. In 1928, Fleer employee Walter Diemer improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation to produce the first commercially successful bubble gum, Dubble Bubble. Its pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow. Fleer became known as a maker of sports cards, starting in 1923 with the production of baseball cards. Fleer also released American football (1960) and basketball (1986) card sets through its history. The company also produced some non-sports trading cards. In 1995, Fleer acquired the trading card company SkyBox International and, over Thanksgiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Baseball Card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, stadiums, or celebrities. Baseball cards are most often found in the contiguous United States but are also common in Puerto Rico or countries such as Canada, Cuba and Japan, where top-level leagues are present with a substantial fan base to support them. Some notable companies producing baseball cards include Topps and Panini. Previous manufacturers include Fleer (now a brand name owned by Upper Deck), Bowman (now a brand name owned by Topps), and Donruss (now a brand name owned by Panini). Baseball card production peaked in the late 1980s and many collectors left the hobby disenchanted after the 1994-95 MLB strike. However, baseball cards are still one of the most influential collectibles of all time. A 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Topps
The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards. Topps also produces cards under the brand names Allen & Ginter and Bowman. In the 2010s, Topps was the only baseball card manufacturer with a license with Major League Baseball. Following the loss of that license to Fanatics, Inc. in 2022; Fanatics acquired Topps in the same year. Company history Beginning and consolidation Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Founded in 1890 by members of the Saloman family, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. imported tobacco to the United States and sold it to other tobacco companies. Eventually, in 1908, Morris Chigorinsky Shorin came in control of the company. American Lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dubble Bubble
Dubble Bubble is an American brand of fruit-flavoured, usually pink-colored, bubble gum invented by Walter Diemer, an accountant at Philadelphia-based Fleer Chewing Gum Company in 1928. One of Diemer’s hobbies was concocting recipes for chewing gum based on the original Fleer ingredients. Though founder Frank Fleer had come up with his own bubble gum recipe in 1906, it was shelved due to its being too sticky and breaking apart too easily. It would be another 20 years until Diemer would use the original idea as inspiration for his invention. History Fleer Chewing Gum Company, in Philadelphia, had been searching for years to produce a formula that allowed bubbles to be blown that did not stick. In 1928, while Walter Diemer was testing new gum recipes, he noticed that his product was less sticky than regular chewing gum, and after testing it he found that he could create bubbles easily. After a year of attempts, he made the first successful batch of bubble gum. But the next ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Walter Diemer
Walter E. Diemer (January 8, 1904 – January 8, 1998) was an American accountant who, in 1928, invented bubble gum. Life Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Diemer was working as an accountant at Fleer in 1926 when the company president sought to cut costs by making their own gum base. The company's founder, Frank Henry Fleer, had previously made a batch of bubble gum in 1906 which he called "Blibber Blubber", but it was too sticky and easily broke. Ultimately, the bubble gum used nowadays was invented in 1928 in Wisconsin and has remained his greatest achievement. Although an accountant by trade, Diemer liked to experiment with gum recipes in his spare time. In doing so, he accidentally stumbled upon a unique recipe. The gum was pink because it was the only food coloring in the factory, which is the reason most bubble gum today is pink. Compared to standard chewing gum, the gum was less sticky, would not stick to the face, and yet stretched more easily. Diemer s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Upper Deck
The Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards. Its headquarters are in Carlsbad, California, United States. The company also produces sports related items such as figurines and die-cast toys on top of having exclusive agreements to produce memorabilia (under the brand name "Upper Deck Authenticated") with such athletes as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Ben Simmons, Wayne Gretzky, Connor McDavid and Serena Williams. Under the Upper Deck Entertainment name, the company also produced card games such as ''World of Warcraft'' and '' Vs. System''. Upper Deck is also the current licensor of the O-Pee-Chee brand since 2007, having released several baseball and ice hockey card collections. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sports Card
A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other text (attacks, statistics, or trivia). There is a wide variation of different types of cards. Trading cards are traditionally associated with sports (baseball cards are particularly common) but can also include subjects such as ''Pokémon'' and other non-sports trading cards. These often feature cartoons, comic book characters, television series and film stills. In the 1990s, cards designed specifically for playing games became popular enough to develop into a distinct category, collectible card games. These games are mostly fantasy-based gameplay. Fantasy art cards are a subgenre of trading cards that focus on the artwork. History Origins Trade cards are the ancestors of trading cards. Some of the earliest prizes found in retail p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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SkyBox International
SkyBox International Inc., formerly Impel Marketing, was an American trading card manufacturing company based in Durham, North Carolina started in 1990 and operated until 1995. History Impel Marketing In 1990, The Liggett Group Inc., a U.S. tobacco company, announced it would change its name to Brooke Group Ltd. and split into two subsidiaries, Liggett Group Inc. and Impel Marketing Inc. Liggett covered the tobacco business, while Impel covered its non-tobacco activities. At the time of the announcement, the company had small businesses in collectible football and basketball cards as well as confectionery products, both of which used the same distribution channels as cigarettes. Impel was to be headquartered in Durham, North Carolina and was expected to broaden the scope of the company's sports and entertainment business. SkyBox Impel Marketing changed its name to SkyBox International Inc. in April 1992. That same year, the company appointed Magic Johnson as its spokesperson. In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trading Card
A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other text (attacks, statistics, or trivia). There is a wide variation of different types of cards. Trading cards are traditionally associated with sports ( baseball cards are particularly common) but can also include subjects such as ''Pokémon'' and other non-sports trading cards. These often feature cartoons, comic book characters, television series and film stills. In the 1990s, cards designed specifically for playing games became popular enough to develop into a distinct category, collectible card games. These games are mostly fantasy-based gameplay. Fantasy art cards are a subgenre of trading cards that focus on the artwork. History Origins Trade cards are the ancestors of trading cards. Some of the earliest prizes found in ret ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Non-sports Trading Card
Non-sport trading cards are a particular kind of collectible card designated as such because trading cards have historically prominently featured athletes from the world of sports as subjects. Non-sports cards are trading cards whose subjects can be virtually anything other than sports-themed. History The earliest popularly collected versions of most trading cards were issued as premiums in packages of cigarettes well over 100 years ago. While sport figures were most often the subject depicted on the card (usually issued one per pack), a wealth of various subjects from outside the world of sports were additionally featured on cigarette cards. These included people from the world of entertainment, exotic animals, and famous places, among various other non-sport subjects. Eventually, as the cigarette makers ceased issuing cards in their products, both non-sport and sports cards were still sometimes given as a bonus with a stick of bubblegum or along with other food products ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blibber-Blubber
Blibber-Blubber was the first bubble gum formulation, developed in 1906 by American confectioner Frank H. Fleer. The gum was brittle and sticky, with it containing little cohesion; for these reasons, the gum was never marketed. It also required vigorous rubbing with a solvent to remove from the face after the bubble had burst. Subsequent developments In 1928, after a number of unsuccessful tests using various formulas, Walter Diemer, an accountant at the Frank H. Fleer Company, improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation by adding latex. As stated in a 1996 Lancaster Intelligencer Journal interview by Mr. Diemer, the results of one experiment that would lead to the common chewing gum today were completely accidental. The result was the first commercially successful bubble gum brand, Dubble Bubble. Diemer colored his creation pink because it was the only food coloring he had at the time. The pink color came to be associated with bubble gum and was adopted by nearly all subsequent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |