Tuesday, May 21, 2024

1981 Amurol Chu-Bops Album

 


You are looking at a "pack" of 1981 Amurol Chu-Bops. Each album measures 3" x 3" and is a miniature replica of actual album covers. The one above is Pat Travers Band "Crash and Burn." The original release featured Volume 1 and Volume 2 sets consisting of 16 different albums. Each of these packs had a bubble gum "record" inside as well as lyrics to the featured song.


The back of each pack features the Chu-Bops logo with the "card" number displayed at the top between the "P" and the "S." Ingredients and other information was included on the back as well, however, not e the lack of copyright dates. The series ran from 1981-1983 and featured a huge variety of artists.



Once you removed the cello wrapper, the pack unfolded to reveal an offer for a folding album cover binder and the lyrics to the featured song. As mentioned, inside the album, a round bubble gum record. Unfortunately, the one from my pack did not stand the test of time.

You can see the record has grooves and a spindle hole. Very cool novelty back in the day.


When I bought mine from eBay, the seller included several empty albums as well. 

These are readily available on places like eBay, though unopened packs and full display boxes fetch a pretty penny. Special edition sets included multi-album compilations of Elvis, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones.

There are two websites worth mentioning here:

Chu-Bops "Official" Website - https://www.chubops.com/

Jeff's House of Checklists - https://www.nslists.com/chubops.htm

As a GenXer, I remember these being a thing, but I do not specifically remember collecting these or even actually seeing them in the store. Like much of the 80s, we just seemed to have "known stuff" without knowing HOW we knew stuff.


4 comments:

  1. I do remember these but the memory is so vague that I thought they were a late 1970s thing.

    I've been meaning to add a couple of these, maybe now's the time.

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  2. I don't remember seeing these as a kid, but I picked up a big lot of these at the flea market a few years ago. It didn't take long for to make the decision to build the entire collection of 85 albums sealed (only need 8 more). The problem is a lot of these have gum damage that bleeds through the album covers. I've had to recycle a handful over the years.

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  3. I definitely had that Knack one and a couple Beatles ones--in fact I think they might still be with my non-sports stuff somewhere. They were a pretty good idea in collectibles.

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  4. I definitely had the Knack one.

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