For collectors of cards, stickers and other items from the 1950s, 60s and 70s there are few producers that come close to the quality, variety and longevity of A&BC Chewing Gum. Nigel's Webspace is proud to be playing a part in recording the history of the company and showing much of the output of A&BC Chewing Gum's football cards production. This page provides a central reference to A&BC Chewing Gum resources on Nigel's Webspace.

Company history

In the aftermath of World War II four young men, recently demobbed from their War service, Mr Simon Anysz, Mr Rudy Braun, Mr Douglas Coakley and Mr Tony Coakley decided to form a company with the aim of producing and selling chewing gum. Using the letters of their names the owners called the company A&BC Chewing Gum. In its 25-year history (the company folded in 1974) it produced some of the best bubble gum and collectors cards ever seen in the U.K. With input and assistance from Douglas and Tony Coakley, Nigel's Webspace has put together a history of A&BC Chewing Gum, focusing on their football cards output. The history is copyright and may not be reproduced without the permission of the author, Nigel Mercer.

The history has 8 parts:

  1. 1. Introduction and beginnings

  2. 2. Card production and Topps

  3. 3. Football cards, Topps and the Beatles

  4. 4. The end of A&BC Chewing Gum

  5. 5. Non-football cards and stickers produced by A&BC Chewing Gum, 1953 to 1974

  6. 6. Football cards and stickers produced by A&BC Chewing Gum

  7. 7. The Braun family story

  8. 8. The Frank Conway story

Working at "The Gum" factory

Del Smith and Ken Hatfield worked at the A&BC Chewing Gum factory in Spilsby Road, Harold Hill in the mid 1960s. Their stories are told in a special edition of this website's newsletter - Del's Story. If you ever worked for A&BC Chewing Gum please contact this site and tell your own story.

Margaret worked at the factory for 10 years, from 1963 until 1973, and tells her story here - Margaret's story.

Football cards

A&BC Chewing Gum produced football cards for both the English and Scottish markets. Details of the individual card sets, including galleries (where available) and checklists are available via the website Master index. Details of all sets, including images of cards and wrappers, is provided separately for English football cards and Scottish football cards.

The boxes which sat on the counters of newsagents and sweet shops, commonly referred to as 'counter boxes', are now very collectable. A display of a number of A&BC counter boxes is available here: A&BC Chewing Gum counter boxes.

The wrappers for the gum and cards are also now both rare (particularly unopened) and collectable. Click to view a master page of A&BC Chewing Gum Football wrappers. Examples of A&BC English football card gum wrappers are shown on a number of pages - 1969/70 Green-back wrappers, 1970/71 Orange back wrappers, 1971/72 Purple-back wrappers, 1972/73 Orange-red-back wrappers, 1973/74 Blue-back wrappers, 1974/75 Red back wrappers.

Notwithstanding the quality of their cards, A&BC did make a number of errors in their football card output. A&BC Chewing Gum variants is an evolving study of the errors and variations in A&BC cards.