Fun 99 cent purchase

I had found the 1979 Eddie Murray comic that I posted last week while scrounging through boxes of stuff that I've been cleaning out/organizing lately. It was something I had forgotten all about and it sent me to the net for more info and maybe a chance to chase the set. It seemed like a pretty inexpensive yet fun project.

One of the first items that appeared when i searched was a handful of the individual unopened Bazooka gum pieces that had the comics inserted under the label. The lot had 5 pieces and the asking price was 99 cents. I bid, and I won for the minimum. And they arrived on Friday:

Here is a closer look at the 'front' and 'back' of one of the pieces.

The comic is visible under the wrapper. I'm pretty sure that if anyone cared to they could figure out which comic was inside each piece with a minimum of research.

Removing the wrappers carefully (with age they have become somewhat fragile). But they came off without a problem and the gum and insert looked like so:

If you are thinking "that gum.... no way" then you are thinking just like I did. It's 35 years old. LOL But truth be told it wasn't as rock hard as I had expected it to be. I was able to bend a piece some. I had to, I was sure it would shatter like glass but it didn't. But that's as far as I went. I wasn't about to actually try it. For one thing I don't chew gum now and I never really liked baseball card gum back then anyway. 

Unwrapping the first piece and opening the comic yielded this:

Then came another Hisle, a  John Mayberry.....

 yet another Hisle and finally a Rod Carew comic.....

Total haul for 99 cents. 3 Hisles, Mayberry and Carew. Kind of a neat 'adventure' without much cost. The cost would have come with the dental bills I'd have incurred had I tried the 35-year-old blocks of Bazooka. And the answer to your first question (it was my first question as well).... yes, that old familiar scent of Bazooka gum is there, but just barely.

Getting three Hisles had me suspicious that whoever was selling these probably pulled the stars out but for  less than a buck I guess it doesn't matter much. Plus the Rod Carew is pretty cool. I had some money in my account at COMC so I've grabbed up an additional handful of these. They were very cheap due to low demand but they are a colorful insert that'll be a cool little project to track down.

More Comic Nonsense

I meant to make this part of yesterday's post but I forgot to add it. Like the Cuellar comic booklet this Murray is the only example of this 1979 Topps gum insert comic. The set included 33 different comics and they were found folded around a five cent hunk of Bazooka bubble gum.

All the comics follow a similar format, two drawings of the player, a short set of player info and a game rule illustration entitled 'Inside Baseball'

They've been blogged in other places before so I won't get into them very deeply except to say that the comics were printed on the same type of waxy paper that the Bazooka gum was always wrapped in, the same stuff that they printed the Bazooka Joe comics inserts on.

Mine has folds and most of the examples you find for sale or auction have them as well but I also see more pristine examples and those are usually seen with the outside wrapper still as part of the whole thing. I'm sure someone with knowledge of the Topps process could fill me in. Here is what I am referring to:

Those two were on eBay. I've seen this listed as a 'test' issue but they are pretty easy to find and not very costly. Maybe 'limited' is a better term than 'test'. Again, I don't know the specifics of the distribution and I don't recall seeing them when they were issued as I was just beginning to 'reawaken' as a collector around 1979.

The checklist is much stronger than the one that was compiled for the 1970 comic booklets. Each team has at least one representative with the Red Sox, Tigers, Yanks, Braves, Reds, Dodgers and Giants having two each bringing the total to 33.

1 Eddie Murray Orioles
2 Jim Rice Red Sox
3 Carl Yastrzemski Red Sox
4 Nolan Ryan Angels
5 Chet Lemon White Sox
6 Andre Thornton Indians
7 Rusty Staub Tigers
8 Ron LeFlore Tigers
9 George Brett Royals
10 Larry Hisle Brewers
11 Rod Carew Twins
12 Reggie Jackson Yankees
13 Ron Guidry Yankees
14 Mitchell Page A's
15 Leon Roberts Mariners
16 Al Oliver Rangers
17 John Mayberry Blue Jays
18 Bob Horner Braves
19 Phil Niekro Braves
20 Dave Kingman Cubs
21 Johnny Bench Reds
22 Tom Seaver Reds
23 J.R. Richard Astros
24 Steve Garvey Dodgers
25 Reggie Smith Dodgers
26 Ross Grimsley Expos
27 Craig Swan Mets
28 Pete Rose Phillies
29 Dave Parker Pirates
30 Ted Simmons Cardinals
31 Dave Winfield Padres
32 Jack Clark Giants
33 Vida Blue Giants

You can see each of the 33 here in a large format gallery.