Have you ever thought of Judas Priest or Blue Oyster Cult and thought of bubblegum? If you collected Chu-Bops, you probably have. What exactly are Chu-Bops some of you may be asking?
Chu-Bops were packs of record-shaped bubblegum that came housed in a small 3X3 inch replica album cover. Chu-Bops were introduced in 1980 by the Amural Products Company.
The first series they produced, consisted of eight different rock and soul album covers by assorted artists including The Knack, Pat Benatar, Rush, The Spinners and Abba. Each miniature
album had a song lyric (usually the biggest hit) printed on the back side. They also had a detachable flap that was an order form for mail order offers. The Beatles Chu-Bops Bubble Gum
Records series was manufactured by Album Graphics, Inc. of Illinois, and was sold in stores during the 1980's.
Sets of the 16 "albums" are worth $40-$60 while a display box
complete with the 64 pieces sells for $150 to $200. A sealed master carton containing 6 of the 64 piece display sets was sold in January 1998 for $1,000.00. Some contained an offer for a
collectors display album to hold your Chu-Bops collection. A collectors display album holds 16 chu-bops, or 2 series. Other flaps had order forms for joining the artist’s fan club, and some in the later series had a one dollar coupon for the CBS
various artists LP “In Harmony.” Some of the later series also replaced the lyrics with the artist’s bio. The mini-albums came wrapped in shrink. If you were careful, you could extract the
pink record-shaped gum by cutting a slit in the side of the plastic, which would leave the shrink intact just like your real records.
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