Vintage Gums Flashbacks
From Last Year to Last Century

Beemans Gum used to be known as a digestive aid due to the inclusion of the enzyme in each stick. Although it no longer contains Pepsin, Beemans is still sealed tight to preserve its unique sweet wintergreen flavor.

This hand-drawn vintage advert promotes Adams Black Jack gum, which hit the streets in 1884 as the first flavored chicle product in the United States.

American Baseball and chewing gum have walked hand-in-hand for over half a century. In this vintage ad, a baseball player is seen enjoying Adams Black Jack.

This mustachioed advertisement comes from the mouth of Doctor E. E. Beemans, who first had the idea to put Pepsin into chewing gum. This, along with Beemans’ unique sweet wintergreen flavor, popularized the gum after its release in the late 1800s.

This charming ad captures attention with a little girl dressed in an old-timey frock, knitting a ball of yarn that looks suspiciously like Black Jack!

Hope this flustered-looking gentleman didn’t forget his wallet! A jar full of Beemans is too good to pass up.

In this vintage advert, two kids in their Sunday best share a stick of Adams Black Jack as their parent looks on. They may not know it judging from their twin smiles—certainly looks like they think they’re getting away with something!

This vintage ad shows big smiles for Adams Black Jack chewing gum. Accompanying the graphics is the tagline, “that good old licorice flavor!” Over the course of Black Jack’s lifetime, the tagline has appeared on advertising, across the packaging, and now on this website.

This tongue-in-cheek ad shows a gentleman who previously forgot something important on his grocery list—three guesses as to what it was!

Mm-mm! This saturated vintage ad speaks all things Clove, from the warm flush on the boy’s cheeks to the tagline: Good Old Fashioned Flavor.

In this picture, Black Jack is dressing up the New Jersey boardwalk right above the Canton Tea Parlor in 1920.
(Image from Duke Library)

This advert from 1927 is soliciting customers for fun titles and captions to accompany the illustration. The grand prize for the best idea is a whopping $1,000, which would roughly equal $15,000 in modern times.

Our executive, Gerrit J. Verburg, during his days selling chewing gum in and around Scandinavia. Stimorol was a popular gum in the region at the time, originating in Denmark.