Collection of chewing gum wrappers

French (French translation)

Bwelcome to the site of a collector of chewing gum wrappers. If you stumbled upon it by chance, don't quit right away. My passion may interest you: it is the collection of chewing gum wrappers.
Chewing gum, or chewing gum, as a product has its own packaging ranging from small paper wrappers to chewing gum machines. After being used, a packaging becomes household waste as well as an object of special attention from collectors. I am exactly the latter: my goal is “chewing gum” (hereafter ch.g.). In general, several types of collections exist in the field of “chewing gum”:
– Chewing gum wrappers (without ch.g.) (№1).
– Thumbnails (images inside the packaging) (№2).
– Chewing gum wrappers (unopened with a ch.g.) (№3).
– Products related to chewing gum (ch.g. machines, sales devices, advertising materials, etc.) (№4).

Over time and as the collection expands we acquire knowledge on this subject, we must classify specimens according to countries, brands, shapes, years of production. We are obliged to choose a particular theme. As for me, the topic “Chewing gum wrappers” (№1) captivated me. Actually, I have a favorite main theme in there: “Ch.g. of a classic rectangular shape” (№5). I have a detailed catalog on this subject, each package has its own number. At present (July 5, 2015), in my collection there are 43,347 packs of ch.g. In total, my collection includes more than 88 thousand copies of chewing gum packaging from 126 countries (according to current borders).
This passion was born when I was a child, in the early 70s. In fact, I had a lot (I collected stamps, matchsticks, coins, etc.). Then the chewing gum theme became my hobby for years to come.
Our theme is not very widespread in the world, but the Internet has allowed me to meet colleagues from all over the world and to communicate with them. I have friendly contacts with colleagues from the Czech Republic, Chile, USA, Japan, Korea. In Russia and the former Soviet republics there are very few collectors even if collecting packaging and stamps of ch.g. was very popular before, in the 70s-80s. However, a few years ago the situation started to change: our collectors (old and young) became very active. It really makes me happy. I would especially like to focus on the Czech Republic. It's curious, but our theme is very developed in this country, there is even a separate section in a Prague collectors club of which I am a member. I know a lot of Czech mail order collectors from pre-Internet times. I managed to talk to them in person in 2011 when I traveled to different Czech cities where my colleagues live (№07-12). Moreover, the largest collections are in the Czech Republic.
Inspired by this trip to the Czech Republic, I realized another dream in 2013. I visited Japan, I met collectors - my correspondence friends and I also participated in a television program "TV Asahi dedicated to ch.g. day, which is celebrated in Japan on June 1 (№13-19). The Japanese theme is very present in my collection. It all started one day with packaging that was precisely Japanese… Now the percentage of Japanese wafer packaging is far ahead of all others. In general, the countries of the Far East, apart from Japan it is South Korea and in recent years it is China, are very interesting for our hobby thanks to the prerogative production of chewing gums in the shape of booklets that deal with different picturesque subjects from cinema, video games and comics. A real find for a collector… I have already visited Korea, but I have never been to China. I hope to catch up soon, but as experience shows, it is very difficult to buy something interesting since China is too big a country. In other countries, you can sometimes buy Chinese chewing gum with interesting packaging that is not found in China itself. I have an experience of having bought interesting Chinese chewing gums in Cambodia; then I received the same from Mongolia, but these are countries where we have never produced ch.g. To say the least, no collector has one in his collection. Fortunately, Ethiopia and Nepal left this “black” list not long ago (№20-21). Still, there are quite a few gaps in the list of chewing gum producers.
To tell the truth, chewing gum is a fairly old product for which the Americans obtained the patent for invention in the 19th century. Myself, I have a chewing gum box that dates from February 14, 1871 (№6). This copy is the oldest in my collection. I also have other paper packaging made in the late 19th – early 20th centuries (№22-23). Anyway, the majority of my collection is represented by the packaging produced during the last 40 years. However, there are collectors who only collect copies from the pre-war period, before 1940. My collection is growing thanks to exchanges with colleagues, sometimes I manage to find and buy small old collections on announcement, but lately it's very rare. There were cases of free acquisitions: some people offered me their childhood collections.
I am forced to collect many other different things to trade with collectors (of coins, stamps, phone cards, cigarette packets, chocolate wrappers etc.) These additional collections are also exciting, yet it is rather an enrichment of my exchange fund than a real collection. If I have to leave it in exchange for my main theme, I will do it without a doubt. At the moment I have a good collection of Samara transport tokens (№24), I even created a small site: “Samara transport tokens”. I have success with phone cards and chocolate wrappers, but I have so many copies that I doubt I can post it on the internet. I don't have enough time to create my own catalog of chewing gum packaging on the Internet, I'm not even talking about other collections. I enrich my collection during trips abroad when I buy new chewing gum; I also buy in local stores, but new products are quite rare even if in recent years new Russian chewing gum producers have pleased us. These purchases are mainly useful to supplement the exchange fund. I use internet auctions a lot for new acquisitions.
A little about me: I live in Samara, I am married, I have a daughter and a granddaughter, when I have free time from my hobby I have to work to be able to finance my hobby.
Are you a collector? Do you have other collectibles? Do you want to have beneficial exchanges with me? Do you have an old collection of chewing gum wrappers? I am open to any collaboration, please contact me, by any means, I will absolutely answer you.