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The Bee Bee
Confection Co
information from
DAYTON
HISTORY BOOKS
ONLINE

Bee Bee Confection Co - Makers of chewing gum:

In the 1880's - individuals such as Adams, White, Primley demonstrated that good profit
could be made selling chewing gum which was followed in the 1890's by the success of others
such as Wm. Wrigley Jr. Upon witnessing all these individuals making money from sales of
chewing gum; many companies (large and small) along with adventurous individuals, jumped
onto the chewing gum band-wagon. Even larger and well established companies such as Coca-Cola
soon found it wasn't as easy as it looked and due to the fierce competition and other factors,
many business ventures of making and selling chewing gum were often fairly short-lived.

Not all that ventured into chewing gum ended with disappointment and many were successful
in developing good brands and markets for their chewing gum. A good number of new chewing
gum companies entered into the market place from the early 1900's thru the early 1930's.
One of these companies was Bee Bee Confection Co., Dayton, OH and makers of
Fan Tan and Fan See chewing gums. Bee Bee introduced Fan Tan in the early 1900's and in 1915
produced a poplar song with sheet music entitled "Be My Little Fan-Tan Girl".
The sheet music could be had by sending in two proofs of purchase. Fan-Tan was similar to
Sen-Sen chewing gum in that it also used an "Oriental" theme, style and look to the
chewing gum wrapper, advertising and merchandising. Bee Bee introduced Fan See in the 1920's.
A photo of the Fan Tan sheet music and an early 1900's photo of a Fan Tan truck and salesman
are posted for viewing.

The Fan See chewing gum was a chewing gum made by the Bee Bee Confection Co. The words Fan See
are a clever spin on the word Fancy and its meaning. Bee Bee's Fan Tan wrappers are not an easy
find and Fan See wrappers are even more difficult since the gum was not made as long and
production not as large but Fan See wrappers with gift offers are even harder to come by.
Bee Bee used gift giving offers to promote sales and acquire loyal gum chewers which
specifically targeted young gum chewers.

To get the kids to buy and keep buying Fan See chewing gum, Bee Bee offered great gifts
such as a Scout knife, bicycle, roller skates etc. The kids had to find a wrapper that
had a State and another which had the State's Capitol stamped on the back. The odds were
against finding the two related wrappers since some wrappers had nothing on the inside,
many had a stamp of either a State or a State capitol but finding the two specific
wrappers of one having a State and the other having the corresponding State's Capitol
was not a common thing to say the least. Bee Bee likly printed a very small number of winners.
There were also two other "special gift" offers for kids lucky enough to find a wrapper
with a "Key City" of either Chicago or New Orleans stamped on them. Finding the wrappers
which yielded a gift was was a long shot but it kept the kids buying the gum - lots of gum.