I was sorting through some old boxes the other day and found a relic from the past - Green Stamps. I had put away a couple of the booklets filled with green stamps, an old catalog and a couple of other trading stamps popular in the 1960s.
S & H Green Stamps were popular from the 1930s until the late 1980s. The S & H stood for Sperry & Hutchinson. You could buy a large variety of items with the stamps ranging from furniture to small appliances and many other household items. Some things were as inexpensive as one or two books of stamps and others could cost twenty or thirty or more.
Along with the old Green Stamps I found were a couple of other types of stamps we used to save back in the 1960s. There were Blue Chip and Top Value Stamps. I don't think these were as popular as the Green Stamps but several different types of stamps were used by different stores as a kind of rewards program.
I wondered if other countries had used this type of reward program in the stores. After a little research I discovered there was a British sales program very similar to this using Green Shield Stamps. Does anyone here remember these stamps or maybe some other similar program that may have been popular?
I don't know about you, but things like these stamps really take me back. Like many other things from the past, these are now just a part of our memory.
If an impertinent child every asked my mother how much an item cost, he response was "A book of stamps!" Or, "Two books of stamps!"
ReplyDeleteHow funny! I love it. Those stamps really came in handy.
DeleteYes My Mom saved green stamps and Gold Bond Stamps too. I loved going to the S and H Stamp Store Mom got a hair clipper once and a step stool..fun memory:)
ReplyDeleteI remember Gold Bond stamps too. You know I think we got a step stool also. I was looking at the catalog and really surprised when I realized how many items in it we had in our house. It's funny how the practice of giving the stamps out just slowly disappeared.
DeleteThere were similar programs in place in Germany, all before the advent of customer cards in plastic, where all your purchase data and many other personal information is used to tailor adverts and the amount of products delivered to the shops. As someone working in data protection, I much prefer the old-fashioned use of stamps, where the shop didn't know anything about its customers other than what the clerk who knew his or her "regulars" would know!
ReplyDeleteThe supermarket where O.K. shops has similar stamps, but the rewards you can buy with them is rather limited, and often there is nothing we want. Last year, they had very good kitchen knives, and O.K. got me those for Christmas (among other things that were not bought with stamps).
Yes, we have the customer cards here too and I often wonder about the possible electronic risks that could be involved in using them. We do use one in our grocery store though because besides saving quite a bit on groceries we also save a lot on gas for our car. Everything has really changed these days and we do have to constantly be aware of all the various types of electronic risks out there.
DeleteI started to smoke when I started at the Junior College in 1968 because they had a cigarette machine in the cafeteria and nobody checked me there even though I was only 17 and I thought it made me look as old as everybody else. I saved the stamps I got in my cigarette packs. I smoked Old Golds so I assume they were Gold Bond Stamps. Other students saved them for me, too, that otherwise would have thrown them away. Saved and saved until I had enough to buy my very first electric coffee pot. It was a white Corningware with little blue flowers on the side. Before that I had one of those clear coffee pots that you boiled on the stove. Were those made by Pyrex? Yes, I remember saving stamp booklets. :)
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how remembering something like saving stamps will prompt other memories like the Corningware coffe pot you bought. The stamps remind me of the items I bought with them too and of that time in history.
DeleteMy Mum always saved Green Shield stamps over here in the UK. I have no idea what she 'bought' with them. I think things must have been ordered from a catalogue and came by post as there was no Green Shield shop. I don't even remember which shops gave out the stamps.
ReplyDeleteI think collecting the stamps must have just been a part of shopping in the 1960s. I remember my Mother getting some nice things with her stamps.
DeleteI was a driving instructor and had to fill up the tank with petrol quite often. Always went to the garage which gave stamps. They had some lovely cutlery so I collected it, one piece at a time. Still using it today.
ReplyDeleteHi, welcome to my blog! I imagine with all the driving you did back then you collected a lot of stamps. How nice that you got something you are still using. I still have the vanity tray that I got for my Mother.
DeleteYes - "We Give Green Shield Stamps" was the notice outside shops and garages. There was a Green Shield Stamp Shop in The Headrow in Leeds where you could exchange them. I got my first dictionary with them around 1971.
ReplyDeleteI remember those signs outside shops, only of course here they were for different stamps. It is funny, almost everyone remembers something they bought with the stamps. I would say a dictionary was a good purchase!
DeleteGreen stamps were like the points we get today and air miles, I think. they just used another technology to operate it.
ReplyDeleteYou are right Red. It is like a loyalty or rewards program. But I remember my Mother used to get some nice things with her stamps.
DeleteWe saved both S&h and I have a book of Top Value....I got a Polaroid camera with them. I cannot remember what else. But they sure bring back a lot of memories.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems like there were several different kinds of stamps from different stores. It is one of those things that take you back, isn't it?
DeleteWhen I was in high school, I worked at a grocery store. We still gave out green stamps, but a year or so after I started, they phased out and green stamps became a thing of the past.
ReplyDeleteIt was funny the way they disappeared. It seems like they were there one day and gone the next.
DeleteWhen newly married we saved green shield stamps. We went to a place in London to swap them for goods. I still have the monopoly set we bought but can't remember other items.
ReplyDeleteHi Jean, welcome to my blog. It is fun to remember the items we got with stamps. A monopoly set was a good purchase and it's neat that you still have it.
DeleteI don't remember having those here but I spent my childhood with my nose firmly in a book so it might have been happening and I just didn't realize it! lol
ReplyDeleteAs another reader mentioned, the points and reward systems these days are very similar. We get good discounts and cash rewards just by buying groceries so I feel it's well worth them tracking what we buy. It's only food, not anything personal.
You are right, the rewards system can be nice. The one we have at our grocery store also saves us money on gas for the car which is helpful.
DeleteYes. I can indeed remember Green Shield stamps over here in England. We also had stamps from our local co-operative stores that could be collected in the same way. My mother also collected coupons from her cigarette packs that could be accumulated and traded in for gifts - but not gravestones or oxygen to assist breathing or air freshener to get rid of the stench of stale cigarette smoke.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when people didn't think it was dangerous to smoke. Fortunately we know better now.
DeleteI remember some kind of stamps that came with cigarettes here. The green stamps that we got in the grocery store came in handy more than a few times.
My mother saved S&H green stamps and occasionally she would have enough to get a few small items. When my wife was not yet my wife, however, her mother won a drawing at their local supermarket and received some enormous amount of S&H green stamps -- I can't remember whether it was either 10,000 or 100,000 -- and gave them to her daughter, who promptly redeemed them for a Polaroid Land camera, a small organ with pedals and everything, and a few other things besides, including, I think, luggage.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, at our house we definitely remember S&H green stamps.
Wow! That is a lot to win and could buy many things. I bet your wife does remember green stamps!
DeleteOh I sure do remember S&H Green Stamps. Mama saved them. There used to be a book here in one of her old cookbooks. I'll have to start looking for it. Such good memories. I loved those good old days.
ReplyDeleteThese sure are part of our memories from the past! I hope you find the ones your Mama saved. Of course they are not really good for anything now but they are a link to our past years. When I found my old stamps the other day so many memories came flooding back. I thought of my Mother and my Grandmother and then remembered some of the many things we bought with the stamps. A relic of the past!
DeleteGreat memories Bonnie! I remember the Green Shield Stamps in England in the UK as my Mum used to save them up. We also had co-op stamps which were a similar system.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to be able to shop for things without money, although I think we still had to pay the tax.
DeleteWe saved Green Shield Stamps and they were very important to my mother. We got one major thing with them, an electric frying pan, which my mother used for years and years and would never have had without the Green Shield Stamps. We carried on saving but eventually the company gave up and we were left with stamps we could not exchange.
ReplyDeleteYour story about the Green Shield Stamps sounds very familier to me because my Mother was the same way about the Green Stamps. There were several items she would not have been able to get if not for the stamps she saved. The stamps were helpful for many people. Thanks Rachel.
DeleteWe went shopping at the Green Stamp Store. We had to take the bus to get there. I remember several gifts came from there.
ReplyDeleteparsnip
It was fun saving the stamps until we had enough to buy something wasn't it. Thinking about things like that take me back to another time. Thanks for your comment!
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