Most visitors to this website will know how highly collectors value the production of A&BC Chewing Gum. From the perspective of football card collectors their output from 1954 until 1974 was remarkable for its variety and quality. While it is still an on-going quest to try to build up a complete history of their work, little by little we are adding bits of the jigsaw puzzle. This task has been much much easier through the generous contributions below, mainly from a website visitor Graham, who owns this fine collection. Additional contributions to the gallery will be gratefully accepted - please email here.
A&BC Chewing Gum sold football cards in packets of chewing gum. The wrappers for the gum and cards are now very collectable, since most would have been instantly discarded by the buyer as soon as they were outside of the sweet shop. Rarer still are the counter boxes which the sellers of these packets would have used to store and display the packets. Amazingly a number have survived, and this website hopes, over time, to be able to display them all.
This counter box and wrapper are believed to have been used for the English black and white cards and the Scottish colour photos.
I'm not aware that there was a Scottish set of cards for the 1967/68 season.
Click for gallery of England's Stars pin-up pictures.
These yellow back cards were issued in two series, with the pennants given away with Series 1. There should therefore also be a counter box, probably with 'New series' on the top and the Club Emblems on the side.
In 1968/69 the Scottish cards were also yellow backs, but I'm not aware that they gave away pennants with the Scottish cards.
Click for gallery of Team Pennants.
These green back cards were issued in three series, with black and white photographs given away with Series 2 and 3. The counter boxes for Series 2 and 3 have 'New series'. Tony and Douglas Coakley, past Directors of A&BC, have confirmed that the new series were issued as the season progressed to entice buyers to continue buying cards throughout a season.
In 1969/70 the Scottish set of cards had blue backs and included the black and white photographs, though featuring different players from the English issue. The only player who appeared in both the English and Scottish photograph sets was Alan Gilzean, whose image appears on the counter box. Coincidence, or perhaps evidence that the same counter box was used for the English and Scottish sets (though it is not clear that the Scottish set of 77 was issued in more than one series).
These purple back cards were issued in three series, with club crests given away with Series 2 and superstar stamps given away with Series 3. The displayed box is therefore for Series 2.
