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Bowman (brand)

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Bowman (brand)

Bowman is a brand of trading cards owned by Topps.

The Bowman Gum Company was a Philadelphia-based manufacturer of bubble gum and trading cards. It was founded by Jacob Warren Bowman in 1927.

Bowman produced a line of baseball cards, which were highly popular in the 1940s. Bowman also produced American football, basketball, and hockey cards. The company was acquired by Topps in 1956, and the brand was discontinued.

Topps resurrected the "Bowman" brand in 1989.

Jacob Warren Bowman, an American chewing gum salesman, started his own company, Gum, Inc. in Philadelphia in 1927. Gum, Inc. started producing Blony bubble gum which immediately became the top selling penny bubble gum in the United States in 1929.

The Blony trademark was registered by Bowman on January 13, 1931 (filed June 30, 1930). In 1937, Blony had 60 percent of the sales of bubble gum sold in the U.S., largely due to the fact that, weighing 210 grains, it was the largest piece of bubble gum sold for a penny. With the advertisement "Three Big BITES for a penny", Blony made Gum, Inc. "the biggest firm in the U. S. catering exclusively to the penny gum trade" according to a 1937 Time magazine article. By then, Gum, Inc. occupied five floors and the basement of a building on Woodland Avenue in Philadelphia.

Blony gum came with color trading cards on various topics. A non-sports example, the 1938 series, Horrors of War featured 288 cards detailing various contemporary conflicts. The motto "To know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE" appeared on each card, but children nicknamed the series "War Gum".

Franklin V. Canning became a partner with Bowman in 1930. Canning, a New York druggist who supplied the pink bubble gum base material to Gum, Inc., also provided working capital in return for 250 shares, half of the company stock. A subsidiary of the Wrigley Company developed a better gum base in 1932, which sold for less than Canning's base. President Bowman demanded that Canning reduce the price of the gum base, which resulted in altercations between the two, and ended in Bowman being ousted from the company in 1936.

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