Goudey Gum Company
(1919-1962)

The Goudey Gum Company of Boston, Massachusetts, was one of the pioneer bubblegum card manufacturers The Goudey Gum Company was founded in 1919 by Enos Gordon Goudey. Enos Gordon Goudey was my 4th cousin once removed, or in other words my father's fourth cousin. The original address for the company was 113 Broad Street, Boston Massachisetts. A 1922 document shown at the right (Click on the images for a larger view) tells us that Enos Goudey was President, L. W. Buckley was Vice President, and Harold C. DeLong was treasurer. The treasurer (Harold C. DeLong) was the same person that founded the DeLong Gum Company, and issued baseball card premiums in 1933 in competition with Goudey. The first gum produced by the Goudey Gum Company was OH BOY GUM which is advertized in the letterhead of the 1922 document. During the 1920s the Goudey Gum Company made it's founder quite rich. In 1924 the Goudey Gum Company moved to a larger facility at 52 Everett Street, Allston, Massachusetts. A 1924 Mortgage Note for the move to the new facility is shown on the right. This note was paid off in less than a year. The Goudey Gum Company also tried a few other brand names, but OH-BOY was by far the most successful. In late 1931 or early 1932 Enos Gordon Goudey who was approaching age 70 decided to sell the company to the Corning Family which was a smart move as it allowed him to live out his life as a rich man. We know the transaction was complete by April 12, 1932 from the letter on the right which has his printed name in the letterhead X'd out. We also see from this letter that A. S. Livingston is Vice President, and W. E. Leary is Treasurer. Enos Goudey remained with the company for a while in an advisory capacity. The Goudey Gum Company was a rival of the Philadelphia-based Frank H. Fleer Company for many years. Goudey in fact, claimed he, not Fleer, invented bubblegum and that Fleer simply beat him to the patent (Walter Deimer, the Fleer cost accountant credited with refining the original bubblegum formula,disputes that claim). The first Goudey cards were of Native Americans ("Indians") and their first stab at bubblegum packed with a card was called "Indian Gum" - those cards are still highly collectible staples of the non-sport hobby. The first Goudey sports card issue was a 1933 issue of 239 baseball players, which included Babe Ruth. They called their gum "Big League Chewing Gum" and the set, in near mint condition, is worth upwards of $100,000. Later in 1933, Goudey issued a 48-card set called "Sport Kings" that included the "first-ever" football cards of the legendary Red Grange, Jim Thorpe and Notre Dame immortal Knute Rockne, becoming the first collectible football cards since the turn of the century tobacco cards of collegiate stars. The Goudey "era" in sports cards spanned just nine years, yet it has stood out at the quintessential name in rare and collectible trading cards. In the late 1930s the Goudey Gum Company again changed ownership. This time it was sold to Alfonso Delehunt of Albany, New York who had been the company treasurer. By 1941 the Goudey Gum Company was using recycled rag paper to make the baseball cards because of the scarcity of cardboard products. World War II rationing of sugar and paper products made life difficult for the gum companues. The Goudey Gum Company managed to remain profitible during the war by making aspirin and laxative gum. After the war in 1947 and 1948 the Goudey Gum Company made an attempt to get back into the collectible card business by issuing a 96 card set of Indian Gum Cards which used images from the original series with a new back and a new numbering sequence. By 1949 they gave up on collectible cards. In 1956 the company again changed ownership. This time George Thompson who had been with the company since the late 1920s, and who was running the company at the time bought the company from Alfonso Delehunt. At this time the Goudey Gum Company was making gumballs and OH-BOY-KISSES. The Goudey Gum company remained at the Allston address until January 1962 when it ceased operations. All of the Goudey Gum brands and collectible card series known to the author at present are listed below. These are broken down into Sports Card series, Non-Sports Card series, and Gum Brands without Cards.