Anyone Collect 1959 Bazooka Football?

[jefferyepayne]

In early 1959 Topps released a nine card Bazooka baseball card set on the bottom of 25 piece Bazooka gum boxes. The promotion was so popular that they added 14 additional baseball players to the set later in the season. These 14 are short prints. Late in the year Topps replaced the baseball players on Bazooka boxes with football players. It is likely that the SP's are ones added later just like the SP's in the baseball set.

I don't know the population counts for these but bet there are many more raw ones than graded ones. I was collecting them one by one and had about 1/2 the set when an opportunity presented itself to purchase a near complete set a few years ago. That's how I completed the set and why I have doubles.

jeff

[CowboysGuide]

I've seen lots of complete Bazooka boxes from the 1971 football set, but never seen any from the 1959 set. Does anyone have a complete box they could post a photo of?

[TanksAndSpartans]

I know nothing about this set, but did notice it must be popular as I've seen several cards posted here on net54 from time to time. So, you had to buy a box of gum? The store owner didn't open the boxes and allow the gum to be sold individually? Were there perforations to separate the card from the box or were these hand cut?

[skelly]

My all time favorite set. I'm biased, but doesn't get the respect it deserves in my opinion. Rather than writing a long paragraph, I'll make a few points which people can agree / disagree with add on to etc...

1. More attractive than the baseball set in my opinion. The first nine cards issued in the baseball set are so much easier than the single prints that to me the baseball set is really two separate sets.

2. The Tom Tracy card is impossible, I MEAN IMPOSSIBLE to find. I could be wrong, but I can't image that more than 50-60 total exist, and I feel I am being conservative with those numbers.

3. The Groza and the Conerly are listed as single prints, and they are tough, but not impossible if you are patient and willing to pay when you find them.

4. You would think that the Unitas and Jim Brown would sell for about the same price, but for whatever reason, the Brown seems to always sell for a couple hundred more than a Unitas in similar condition.

5. The toughest non-single prints in my opinion are the Howie Furguson ( packers ) Joe Perry ( 49ers ) and the Alan Ameche ( Colts )

6. For whatever reason, there are a decent amount of these cards out there in good shape. You would think that the large size and the fact they had to be hand cut would be problematic, but they can be found in good condition.

7. These cards are tougher than people realize. Even at the national, very few dealers have them / have access to them. I don't really consider this an "oddball" set, as it was made by topps.

[quinnsryche]

Great info and perspective. Love learning about the lesser known/collected cards of thee past. My favorite card is the Tittle. Don't know why, just like the looks of it. What would one expect to pay for an example in decent shape? Not a lot of research material available on sale prices for ones other than Brown and Unitas.

[clamendo]

50-60? I think that's high. I wish we could do a poll on these rare sets and see how many exist. It would be eye opening. I guess the population reports are the best we can do for now. There are only 4 graded Tracy's plus let's assume there are 2x ungraded. This is mostly due to the fact that they are hand cut and you'll get an authentic grade. So, I say there are 10 or so Tracy's.

[jefferyepayne]

The Tom Tracy is brutally tough. I've never seen one come up for auction besides the one I have.

Agree this set is under appreciated. It is one of my favorites.

jeff

[finalscore]

The 59 Bazooka's are one of my favorites to. Groza and Tracy were the last two I needed way back when to complete my set. Here are some scans of one of my boxes (empty of course!).

Originally Posted by CowboysGuide

I've seen lots of complete Bazooka boxes from the 1971 football set, but never seen any from the 1959 set. Does anyone have a complete box they could post a photo of?

[brian1961]

Mike---

Thanks ever so much for taking the time and trouble of posting the photos of your fabulous 1959 Bazooka Alan Ameche box. A king-sized gem.

For the gentleman who asked, Bazooka marketed a box containing a large number of individual one-cent twin chews of their wonderful bubble gum. These fit the category of penny candy, which existed at that time and was sold at small grocery stores, drug stores, and dime stores.

Topps wanted a way for kids to purchase more than a few pennies' worth of gum at one time, so they developed this type of box with 20-25 individual twin chews. I do not know exactly when Bazooka first issued a box of this design, but I am rather certain they wanted to increase sales of their product, and since they were already offering the regular wax packs and cello packs of trading cards, come 1959 they decided upon the perfect incentive to goose those sales of Bazooka gum---with a free prize baseball and then football card.

They were by no means punched off the box. As the others have said, they were purely hand cut cards, which caused all sorts of condition degradation on top of the other condition problems that arose from their manner of sale.

This is a great set, in every way.

As an aside, I am so glad Bazooka got the much better pose and natural happy expression of all-time great Johnny Unitas, rather than the looney-looking appearance Johnny gave the photographer for the other shot, chosen for the 1960 Topps. ---Brian Powell

[TanksAndSpartans]

Mike - thanks for showing the box - a picture is worth a thousand words (Anyone catch that Jeff authored one of the articles in the GG issue the box is sitting on?)

Brian - great explanation - thanks.

[jtschantz]

Looking for the Groza

[quinnsryche]

That box is AWESOME! The Jim Brown is absolutely beautiful also. Thanks everyone for sharing your pics and info.

[quinnsryche]

Originally Posted by jtschantz

Looking for the Groza

There's a Groza up on ebay right now if you have a spare 2K lying around.
Seriously, what's it actually worth?

[CowboysGuide]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Mike---

Thanks ever so much for taking the time and trouble of posting the photos of your fabulous 1959 Bazooka Alan Ameche box. A king-sized gem.

For the gentleman who asked, Bazooka marketed a box containing a large number of individual one-cent twin chews of their wonderful bubble gum. These fit the category of penny candy, which existed at that time and was sold at small grocery stores, drug stores, and dime stores.

Topps wanted a way for kids to purchase more than a few pennies' worth of gum at one time, so they developed this type of box with 20-25 individual twin chews. I do not know exactly when Bazooka first issued a box of this design, but I am rather certain they wanted to increase sales of their product, and since they were already offering the regular wax packs and cello packs of trading cards, come 1959 they decided upon the perfect incentive to goose those sales of Bazooka gum---with a free prize baseball and then football card.

They were by no means punched off the box. As the others have said, they were purely hand cut cards, which caused all sorts of condition degradation on top of the other condition problems that arose from their manner of sale.

This is a great set, in every way.

As an aside, I am so glad Bazooka got the much better pose and natural happy expression of all-time great Johnny Unitas, rather than the looney-looking appearance Johnny gave the photographer for the other shot, chosen for the 1960 Topps. ---Brian Powell

So, Topps owns/owned Bazooka, or the other way around? I didn't realize and didn't even make the connection until reading the above post.

[brian1961]

Yes, the Bazooka brand was always part of Topps. Now, precisely what the parent company was named, I do not know off hand. However, I know for certain that Topps and Bazooka are from one and the same parent company.

As you look at many of the photos used on the run of Bazooka baseball issues, Topps either initiated the photo with a Bazooka card, or re-used a photo from one of their mainstream regular Topps set, or even a test issue.

For example, the 1965 Bazooka Mickey Mantle photo was later seen in the 1969 Topps Super Baseball test issue. Both great cards.

Back to football, you can really tell the similarity in the setting for the Johnny Unitas photo shoot, with the nicest portrait going to the 1959 Bazooka, and the obvious Johnny mugging a "half-crazed" pose selected for the 1960 Topps release. Wish I owned a '59 Bazooka Unitas.

All the best. ---Brian Powell

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Yes, the Bazooka brand was always part of Topps. Now, precisely what the parent company was named, I do not know off hand. However, I know for certain that Topps and Bazooka are from one and the same parent company.

As you look at many of the photos used on the run of Bazooka baseball issues, Topps either initiated the photo with a Bazooka card, or re-used a photo from one of their mainstream regular Topps set, or even a test issue.

For example, the 1965 Bazooka Mickey Mantle photo was later seen in the 1969 Topps Super Baseball test issue. Both great cards.

Back to football, you can really tell the similarity in the setting for the Johnny Unitas photo shoot, with the nicest portrait going to the 1959 Bazooka, and the obvious Johnny mugging a "half-crazed" pose selected for the 1960 Topps release. Wish I owned a '59 Bazooka Unitas.

All the best. ---Brian Powell

I don't believe there is any "parent company". Topps IS the company and Bazooka is one of their bubble gum brands.

jeff