The History of Fleer, Impel, and SkyBox
During the second half of the 19th century, a Prussian immigrant named Otto
Paul Holstein operated a drug store at 46 South Water Street in
Philadelphia. Advertisements list the established year as 1849, but a
passport application indicates that Holstein arrived in
May 1855. On August 6, 1885, his daughter Pauline married Franz Heinrich
Fleer, an immigrant from Westphalia. Fleer joined the O. Holstein family
business and established the Frank H. Fleer & Co. Inc. as a
confectionary company.
In 1888, Otto Holstein travelled through Europe to procure supplies of
almonds, gelatins, and lemon oils. Frank Fleer and his younger brother
Robert found early success selling Guru-Kola Gum and Pepsin Gum as digestive
aids. Inspired by Jordan almonds, Robert added a thin candy coating to
pieces of chicle gum. The name "little chiclets" was first used on October
1, 1899, and a patent was registered on
February 23, 1904. Fleer introduced the Chiclets brand in the spring of 1904, and the
crunchy peppermint combination was a nationwide hit. The factory on Hamilton
Street was expanded after the first 60 days of sales.
In 1906, Fleer developed an unsuccessful bubble gum called Blibber-Blubber.
The product was abandoned due to the concoction being too sticky. The bubbles splattered and sometimes required a solvent to remove.
Chiclets sales continued to rise. In 1908, an additional Fleer factory was
constructed in Toronto. On June 19, 1909, Frank Fleer and four other gum
manufacturers formed a $6.7 million trust called Sen-Sen Chiclet Company.
In December 1913, Fleer left the Sen-Sen board and established the Frank H.
Fleer Corporation with $150,000 in capital. In 1914, Sen-Sen Chiclet Company
and the Chiclets brand were absorbed by the American Chicle Company. Frank
H. Fleer died of a stroke on October 31, 1921. Fleer business operations
were led by son-in-law Gilbert Mustin.
From 1886–1930, trading cards were commonly packaged with tobacco products,
caramels, or other candies. Baseball cards were first sold with chewing gum
in 1888 by G&B Gum in New York and H.D. Smith & Co. in
Cincinnati. In 1923, Fleer advertised a set of 120 "famous person"
strip cards. One card was included with every five-cent pack of peppermint
flavor Bobs and Fruit Hearts chewing gum. The heart-shaped gums were similar
to Chiclets.
The 1923 Fleer cards are listed as E241 in The American Card Catalog. The set is comprised of five different strip card series. Each card panel
is printed with a Frank H. Fleer advertisement on the back. A complete set
of 120 Fleer cards has not been documented. Based on observations of uncut
W500 sheets, it is estimated that only 110 different Fleer cards were
actually distributed.
The 60 baseball player images are identical to the strip series known
as Baseball Drawings (W515-1). The Fleer set includes a
10-card strip of U.S. presidents catalogued as
President Drawings (W562), plus a subset of 10 boxers, 10 Old
West heroes, and 20 movie stars. Identical images appear on sheets referred
to as Three Line Text Color Strip Cards (W-UNC). Several
cards feature illustrations based on photographs copyrighted by Underwood
& Underwood.
In August 1928, Fleer accountant Walter E. Diemer successfully refined a bubble gum
formula using latex and pink food coloring. Pink was the only abundant color
available and Diemer did not patent the recipe. According to Diemer, ''I was
doing something else and ended up with something with bubbles.''
Market
testing for the new bubble gum began on December 26, 1928. Diemer
personally taught shopkeepers and salesmen how to blow bubbles. Dubble
Bubble Gum debuted in 1930 and sales for the one-cent chew exceeded $1.5
million in the first year. A series of six comic strip wrappers featuring "Dub and Bub –The Dubble Bubble Twins" was copyrighted on September 20, 1930. The original black and-white comics were created by Herbert D. Seuat.
The first bubble gum cards began appearing soon after the introduction of
Dubble Bubble. In 1930, Fleer released a series of 16 die-cut discs as
premium prizes with
Whiz Bang
gum. The "Taka-Flyer" disc set features film actors and three Hall of Fame
baseball players: Goose Goslin, Lefty Grove, and Gabby Hartnett.
In 1935, Fleer released Cops and Robbers Gum (R35), a
35-card set that included sticks of Dubble Bubble with each pack. The card
tabs could be exchanged for a premium detective badge.
By 1937, Blony bubble gum from Bowman's Gum, Inc. dominated the market. Bowman claimed more than 60% of penny gum sales in America, a figure disputed by Fleer sales manager William B. Hunt.
By 1937, Blony bubble gum from Bowman's Gum, Inc. dominated the market. Bowman claimed more than 60% of penny gum sales in America, a figure disputed by Fleer sales manager William B. Hunt.
During World War II, latex and chicle supplies were diverted to the defense effort, sugar was
being rationed to households, and paper scrap drives were held to salvage
pulp. American Chicle, Beech-Nut, Leaf, Walla Walla, and Wrigley were
contracted by the government to supply gum for military rations. After
D-Day, gum from American and Canadian soldiers became widely popular
throughout the Netherlands.
The Japanese occupation of the Malay peninsula cut off the crucial supply of
jelutong latex. Fleer was forced to temporarily suspend production of Dubble
Bubble in April 1943 until 1950. Limited shipments were sent to dentists and
drug stores. Legends of street prices reaching $1 per piece have been
reported. In 1946, Fleer purchased a larger factory from the War Assets
Corporation located on North 10th Street in Olney, Philadelphia.
A new comic strip character named Pud was introduced in 1950. In 1968, Dubble Bubble printed the one-thousandth comic wrapper.
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Bazooka bubble gum was introduced by Topps Chewing Gum in July 1947.
Bowman Gum, Leaf,
Topps, and Swell released baseball card sets in 1948. An aggressive
competition arose over the image rights for professional athletes. In 1956,
Topps acquired the Bowman brand and player contracts for $200,000.
In 1959, Fleer released an 80-card series showcasing Ted Williams. The
exclusive deal removed the popular slugger from Topps sets. Fleer followed
with an
Indian series and a 96-card set for The Three Stooges. In
1960, Fleer released cards for the American Football League and a throwback
series of retired Baseball Greats. At the time, Topps held
exclusive rights to the National Football League and about 400 Major League
Baseball players. In order to compete, Fleer offered athletes $125 for a
non-exclusive contract. In June 1961, Newsweek reported the bubble
gum business was worth an estimated $30 million per year and Topps sales
accounted for nearly half.
By 1964, Topps had signed nearly every active baseball player with around
6,500 exclusive contracts. In 1966, Topps forced the
Exhibit Supply Co. (ESCO)
to stop printing contracted players. In April 1975, Topps refused to license a
series of baseball stickers and Fleer filed antitrust charges. On June 30,
1980, the court ruled that Topps had unfairly restrained trade in the
baseball card market. Fleer was awarded $1 million in damages, which was
tripled to $3 million under antitrust laws.
The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the decision in August 1981. The Topps
contracts contained exclusive rights to baseball cards sold with gum or
candy, so Fleer simply packaged cards with team logo stickers. Donruss
released a 1981 series that included a cardboard puzzle of Babe Ruth.
Topps filed unsuccessful lawsuits against Fleer in 1982 and 1986 before
capitulating. The end of the two-decade baseball card monopoly allowed new
companies Score and Upper Deck to enter the market. Topps stopped
including gum with baseball cards after the 1991 series.
Fleer included a stick of Dubble Bubble inside each pack of basketball cards
from 1986–1989. Initially a sales flop, the 1986–87 Fleer NBA Basketball series is now sought after for containing the Michael Jordan rookie
card and other hall of fame inductees. In 1989, Gilbert Mustin Jr. sold
Fleer to Charterhouse Equity Partners for $75 million. The Charterhouse deal
was led by former Donruss executive Paul Mullan.
Impel Marketing Inc. was formed as a subsidiary of Brooke
Group Ltd. on June 21, 1990. In October 1990, Impel released the first Marvel Universe trading cards, a popular series featuring hologram chase inserts.
Similar sets followed for Walt Disney and
DC Comics
characters. Impel licensed various non-sport properties including A Nightmare on Elm Street, G.I. Joe, Star Trek, and
Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The first sports release was from Impel
was the 1990–91 Inaugural Edition of SkyBox NBA Basketball Cards.
Impel CEO Frank O'Connell was the former president of Reebok and former CEO of
HBO Video. In an interview with Wizard magazine, O'Connell explained that the
name Impel was not relevant to sports or entertainment. Testing favored
"skybox" as a recognizable term for the best seats in the house. On April 15,
1992, Impel Marketing rebranded as SkyBox International Inc. Basketball legend
Earvin "Magic" Johnson was signed as the first celebrity spokesperson.
On July 24, 1992, Marvel Entertainment Group purchased Fleer from Charterhouse
for $265 million. In 1994, Fleer reported $38 million in gum sales and $245
million from trading cards. In 1994, combined sales from all retail trading
card companies was more than $2 billion. Investor speculation and hype led to
larger print runs of cards, comic books, and POGs.
On March 9, 1995, Marvel purchased SkyBox for $150 million. The companies were
merged to form Fleer/SkyBox International, now holding major licenses with the
NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, and NASCAR. Card sales began to drastically decline
following the MLB strike of 1994–1995, and NBA lockout of 1995–1996. On
December 27, 1996, Marvel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Dubble Bubble plant in Olney, Philadelphia, was used to cut and collate
Fleer cards. Ted Taylor, Vice President of the Hobby Division, reported that
"a lot of cards walked out the doors in lunch pails, briefcases and other such
carriers." Collectors commonly refer to stolen factory cards as 'backdoored'.
Entire cases had been stolen from the plant through inside sources. Although
Fleer did not distribute to hobby dealers, complete sets would appear in local
card shops before the official release dates.
Production at the Olney factory stopped on November 26, 1995. Employees
arrived after Thanksgiving weekend to find the gate locked. The plant was shut
down on January 26, 1996, and the closure was featured in the April 9, 1996,
broadcast of ABC News Nightline. According to Fleer/SkyBox CEO
Jeff Kaplan, "It was largely confectionary driven and had little to do with
the baseball strike." Dubble Bubble production continued at the Fleer factory
in Byhalia, Mississippi.
In 1998, the Dubble Bubble brand was purchased for $13 million by Concord
Confections in Canada. Concord was acquired by Tootsie Roll Industries in August 2004 and the Dubble Bubble recipe was changed. Tootsie Roll introduced the "Original 1928 Flavor" in 2015. The wrappers feature 60 classic Pud comic strips.
By 1999, the entire trading card industry had crashed. Marvel sold
Fleer/Skybox for $26 million to Rite Aid founder Alex Grass. The SkyBox
branding stopped appearing after 2000. The Upper Deck Company made an
offer of $25 million in 2003, but the Grass family declined. In 2005, Fleer/SkyBox filed for
bankruptcy with debt nearing $40 million. On July 15, 2005, the Fleer/Skybox
brand was auctioned to Upper Deck for only $6.1 million. The last set released
by Fleer in 2005 was American Idol Season 4, featuring Carrie
Underwood.
Fleer/SkyBox held a bankruptcy auction on September 9, 2005, at the Radisson
Hotel in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. Millions of cards and other memorabilia
from the Fleer and SkyBox archives were sold to the public. The massive sale
included autographs, errors, test proofs, uncut sheets, and unstamped
parallels. A PDF catalog of items listed for auction by the Continental
Auction Group, Inc. can be viewed here.
Since the auction, multiple examples of aftermarket serial number alterations
and counterfeits of rare sports cards have been identified. Collectors are
advised to conduct proper research on products produced by Fleer and
SkyBox from 1986–2005. Hobby experts at the
Blowout Cards Forums
have experience detecting trimmed cards and forgeries.
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Chiclets are currently produced by Mondelez International, formerly Kraft Foods. Dubble Bubble from Tootsie Roll is commonly seen in Major League Baseball dugouts. The last baseball card series containing the Fleer name was issued in 2007.
Fleer
and SkyBox basketball releases temporarily stopped after 2008–09.
The Fleer name returned in 2011, followed by SkyBox in 2015. Both card brands
currently remain in production for various Upper Deck licenses including
NBA, NHL, and Marvel Comics.
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