Batman Gum Cards 2
Oct 1, 2008
Here are all the “Red Bat” cards.
It seems the artist responsible for many of the original 1966 painted Batman bubblegum cards, as well as the earlier Mars Attacks, Civil War, Flags of the World etc cards was the talented artist Norman Saunders (1907 – 1989). His son has produced a fascinating account of his life (with pictures of all the Batman cards) here.
The Magic Robot 
Oct 2, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Hey – it’s great to see these again and wonderful to see a picture of the man behind them. I loved Mars Attacks and the American Civil War cards which I collected when I was a kid – we were banned from bring the Mars Attacks into school and my mother confiscated the set I had. Never did find out what happened to them! For some reason these Batman cards were hard to come by. There was a set with photographs from the Adam West film which you could find everywhere a little later but these were the business. Wonderful to see them again after so many years.
Oct 2, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Hi Sid
Thanks for visiting. I hope you clicked on the link to visit the site dedicated to Norman to see ALL the cards. An earlier blog of mine (click on “Batman” in the Catagory list) received a comment with further detail of how many cards/sets were produced at the time. When I unearthed these cards a while back the nostalgia was overwhelming. I could picture myself running to the corner shop with a few pennies in my pocket…not enough to buy a DC comic but enough to buy a pack of these cards. Simple pleasures….
Mar 4, 2009 at 1:45 pm
These cards are my favorite norm Saunders artwork. I have a set of these that are mint and straight out of the wrappers. These cards are becoming cult status especially in the USA where the Topps set and the A&BC are sought after in mint condition. More and more cards are now being graded by the PSA encapsulated to maintain authentication and condition graded 1 through to 10 Gem-mint go to the PSA website @ http://www.psacard.com/setregistry/default.aspx?c=37 to see the best sets in the world. Mine are not published at present until I have a complete mint set. I also have the only grade 10 mint-gem 66 Red Bat A series card from any company set at this present time 2/3/2009.
Mar 4, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Although I assumed there were people collecting gum cards I hadn’t realised that you could get them encapsulated. My first series of Batman cards will remain firmly glued in their album which probably gives them a grade of minus one.
A quick glance in my storage system (an old cardboard box) reveals 100s of pre-war cigarette cards given to me by my Grandfather, numerous “sweet cigarette” cards with subjects like Superman and Thunderbirds, a number of complete sets of Bubblegum Cards with subjects like Tarzan and most likely every Brooke Bond Tea card from the 1960s. Not forgetting all the Beatles, Danger Man and Monkees cards. I think the collection must have ground to a halt in about 1971 at about the same time I stopped collecting coins (still “carefully” stored somewhere in another cardboard box!)