Ever see a 60-year-old piece of gum? This week, Just Collect is offering proof that it can survive the ages! True to our goal of offering some really unique pieces in our eBay auctions each week, we’re offering a 1952 Topps Baseball wrapper—with a stick of ’52 Topps bubble gum! It's the gum that started an empire. Topps packed that pink stick inside each pack of its never before seen super-sized baseball cards and delivered a shot across the bow of the Bowman Gum Company, which had a stranglehold on the gum card market in the late 1940s and first two years of the ‘50s. Topps’ cards were a success. More players signed on and sixty years later, they’re still at it, even though most of those sticks of gum millions of kids grew up with in the ‘50s, 60s, ‘70s and ‘80s are now just a memory. The 1952 Topps set is enormously popular thanks in part to the famous Mantle high number card but true collectors will also want the colorful red and green wrapper to complement their set. The one we’re offering is the only 1952 Topps wrapper available on eBay as of this writing. They’re far more scarce, of course, than the cards themselves, even though small groups of packs and a few boxes were uncovered in years past. Most were cast aside by kids who were more anxious to see who was inside (if they only knew, right?). The wrapper exhibits light wear, with a few small tears and holes, but overall, the 6”x 6 ½” item is in good shape for its age. The gum exhibits a broken piece on the bottom right side. We’d recommend not trying to chew it! Bidding has been active in the first couple of days of the auction and the wrapper and gum represent just one lot in hundreds that we have available this week.
