Good Sports: 'Art of Selling Bubblegum' at Fresno Art Museum

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- When you locomotion into the Fresno Art Museum, you'll find the "Art of Selling Bubblegum."

"We started talking astir this accumulation pre-pandemic," says curator Sarah Vargas.

It's an accumulation featuring hundreds of vintage Bowman shot cards ranging from the 1930s and 50s.

"Old guys similar maine who collected cards erstwhile they were kids, and now, their kids aren't funny successful their cards, truthful they don't cognize what to bash with them," says Jeff Jaech.

Jaech founded the American Baseball Card Museum, a non-profit helium runs retired of his location to bring successful aged trading cards.

"Kids did not cognize what the players looked like, truthful getting the cards, you get to spot what they looked like," Jaech said.

For the past 4 years, he's been putting unneurotic his Bowman postulation for show astatine the museum.

"Once you started diving into it and doing the research, you realized it's not truly extracurricular of the realm of an creation depository astatine all," Vargas said.

The postulation has been breached into 4 categories: sports, entertainment, past and war.

"Well, it ties into that nostalgia -- it is simply a reminder of times gone by," Vargas said.

Outside of shot cards featuring hallway of famers similar Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays, you'll find the astir gripping deck: "The Horrors of War."

"Some of the cards were utilized arsenic propaganda," Vargas said.

The process of getting these cards was a small antithetic than you mightiness think.

"Because they were coveted, due to the fact that they were collectibles, radical would bargain much bubblegum," Vargas said.

With the invention of bubblegum successful 1928, Bowman's Gum Inc. dominated the marketplace by offering a instrumentality of gum and a battalion of cards for conscionable a fewer cents.

"They became the selling constituent for the gum itself," Vargas said.

That craving for a portion of gum decades agone has opened a doorway into history.

For now, the depository volition support the grounds unfastened done the extremity of June, hoping to stock a portion of American popular civilization with the Central Valley.

"I haven't figured retired what my adjacent 1 volition beryllium yet, but I'll travel up with thing else, too," Jaech said.

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