The Fleer name is synonymous with innovation in both the confectionery and trading card industries. Founded in Philadelphia in 1885 by Frank Henry Fleer, the company initially focused on candy and chewing gum. Fleer is thought to be the first company to develop bubble gum and is particularly noted for pioneering the inclusion of sports cards in its packaging.
The company’s early attempts at selling chewing gum met with limited success. Early on, Fleer experimented with gum flavors and formats, but without much traction. Then, in 1904, Fleer developed a candy shell-coated, chicle-based chewing gum known as Chiclets, which became the first gum with wide distribution. Fleer added various flavors of candy coatings to its gum products, selling them under different names, including the peppermint-flavored Bobs and the fruit-flavored Fruit Hearts. Fleer eventually sold off its Chiclets line but retained its name, reorganizing under the name Frank H. Fleer Corporation in 1919.
By 1923, the company included baseball cards (W515 set) in boxes of its gum brands, including Bobs and Fruit Hearts. These cards were a precursor to the modern trading card industry and marked Fleer as an early innovator. This may have been the first Fleer product to include trading cards—a set of 120 cards featuring 60 then-current baseball players (including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb), as well as boxers and entertainers such as Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford. Fleer advertisements were printed on the backs of all the cards. The cards are quite rare and very difficult to find today.
In 1928, Walter Diemer, a Fleer accountant, experimented with new gum recipes. One formulation, based on an earlier gum called Blibber-Blubber, was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum and stretched more easily. This gum became highly successful and was eventually named Dubble Bubble by the president of Fleer because of its stretchy texture. Dubble Bubble remained the dominant brand of bubble gum—even without relying on marketing gimmicks like trading cards—until after World War II, when Topps' Bazooka Bubble Gum entered the market.
Despite this success, competition in the trading card and gum markets was fierce. Rivals like Jacob Warren Bowman’s Gum, Incorporated, introduced themed trading card sets such as the Wild West Series and Pirates Pictures to accompany their Blony bubble gum. Companies like Goudey and DeLong also launched trading card products during the Great Depression, further popularizing the trend.
In 1959, Fleer released a set devoted to Ted Williams in an effort to stay competitive. Fleer released regular baseball cards from 1960-1963. It branched into professional football cards in 1960 (through 1963), and then took a shot at professional basketball cards in 1961. Like the 1948 Bowman and 1957 Topps basketball card sets, the 1961 Fleer basketball set was not very popular at the time, leading Fleer to discontinue making basketball cards. Because of the long gap between releases, the 1961 set included 23 rookie cards, many of which feature legendary players, including Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, and Elgin Baylor.
Fleer would not issue another basketball set until 1986, again filling a huge gap including the first major release of cards of Michael Jordan, Akeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley, among others.
