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1890s Adams' Tutti Frutti Chewing Gum Box Label W

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:140.00 USD Estimated At:150.00 - 250.00 USD
1890s Adams' Tutti Frutti Chewing Gum Box Label W
<B>1890s Adams' Tutti Frutti Chewing Gum Box Label</B></I> We would bet that most people don't realize that the leading villain in Texas history actually did his part in the invention of chewing gum as we know it today. In 1869 Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the exiled former president of Mexico, was lodging in the Staten Island home of Thomas Adams, a photographer and frustrated inventor. Santa Anna encouraged Adams to take chicle, a gummy substance from the sapodilla tree, and try to develop a rubber substitute (Santa Anna knew where he could get it cheaply). Adams' attempts to make a chicle tire failed, but when he discovered that chicle could be chewed, an idea popped into his head. He wrapped the chicle in colorful tissues, put it in boxes with a picture of the New York city hall and sold them to drug stores around town as "Adams New York No. 1 Gum." The rest, as they say, is history. In 1888 he installed the nation's first vending machines on New York's elevated subways to sell his new fruit-flavored gum called Tutti Frutti. From these early days, here is a rare lithographed color box label for this very gum, 10.5" x 5" in size. Condition is very fine with one fold that does not detract. A rare and desirable label. Lot:252