Scanlen's Metro Gum

Image from popculturalist.net

A 1963 Scanlen's metro gum wrapper sold at auction in Australia recently for a sweet $1600 - that's the wrapper, not one of the collectible cards that came inside. When you think of all the thousands of bubble gum wrappers that got tossed aside..well, hindsight is a wonderful thing eh?

The $1600 bubble-gum wrapper

Scanlens was a well-known chewing/bubble gum company, based in Sydney.

Since the 1930's they had been producing collectible trading cards for the Melbourne VLF (Victorian Football League) featuring, among other things,  football players.The series went out of production in 1991.

There's big money in the cards, needless to say. In 2007, thieves broke into a Melbourne house and stole a collection of football cards valued at $100,000. According to police it was planned robbery - they knew what they were doing.