We used to get S&H Green Stamps when I was a child in the 1980s. But before that we lived in Southern California where we used to get Blue Chip Stamps which were similar. I remember getting the S&H “Idea Book” and picking things out. I remember going to the redemption place and I remember getting a dart board.
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Yes, and I’m old enough to remember a wisecrack about certain individuals giving out Green Stamps along with their… umm… personal services.
My mother collected Green Stamps, but they were hers and hers alone - she used them for the little luxuries of a '60’s housewife - a blender, a vacuum, and Christmas presents for her incredibly spoiled little boy. And sometimes my brother. The premium that I remember getting, from the “service station”, was the Zephyr kite that came out every spring, and the toys with my new P.F. Flyers …
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no zephyr kite giveaways in my old neighborhood. that would have been a definite upgrade over the glass.
I was born in '77, and I do remember my mom getting S&H stamps at the local Piggly Wiggly. They came out of a dispenser that looked like a rotary phone on steroids. You stuck your finger in the hole that corresponded to the purchase amount and dialed out a strip of stamps. No idea what mom used them for, but I guarantee they got used.
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I see what you did there …
I don’t exactly remember collecting them, or my parents collecting them, but posts like this do remind me that I grew up in the USA as some long-buried memory of the Sunday Telegraph Herald emerges, with popcorn made in a paper grocery bag because that’s how you could shake it better, the mustard yellow refrigerator, the Fisher Price houseboat…
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I remember S&H…always a treat to visit Grandma, who’d save them and let me stick them into the book. When I moved here to Switzerland I had a bit of a flashback when I found that they gave Märkli. CHF 10 cash back when you filled a book. I let my son keep the money if he did the sticking. Eventually he decided it wasn’t worth his effort to do the CHF 2 stamps, so I got stuck with them, while he used up the big CHF 50 stamps that were one per section. They finally killed the program last year.
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They did still exist into the early 1980’s.
I never understood how the whole concept worked.
We get stamps when we buy things? OK.
We hand in the stamps for other things? OK.
How does S&H benefit?
We didn’t do much with Green Shield stamps but my mum was a big collector of Coop stamps. Which I suppose are sort of still going in the store card format.
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You could go to Sears, in fact. And every community had a Sears.
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s&h got money from the retailers to whom they provided stamps and they got money and discounts from the manufacturers of their catalog items.
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They still exist hereabouts.
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Green Shield stamps in the UK from BP. I remember going with my Mum to a slightly Soviet-decor store in Plymouth to redeem them in the 1970s for all sorts of household consumerism.
Seem to remember the Co-op used to issue stamps with all their purchases and my Gran sticking them into books - but I honestly can’t remember what you got for them.
OK. So if I follow this, the retailers would carry the stamps because then customers would prefer their store to other retailers, so they’re paying for a type of promotion. (Plus if it was calculated by the stamp, and some customers didn’t use the stamps then that benefits S&H.) And some customers will become hooked on collecting the stamps because they really want the TV set and they only need ten more books.
I don’t smoke, but for a while I picked up Marlboro miles whenever I saw an empty pack on the sidewalk. I eventually got the Swiss Army knife, and it was a legit and unique model, so that was a good deal. BUT, then I kept picking up the miles and tried to get other items-- you had to pay for shipping, and the other items were not worth the cost of shipping-- poorly made sweatshirt, average quality sleeping bag, as the promotion progressed there were fewer good items to choose from. Nevertheless for a long time I still had the urge to pick up empty packs of Marlboros-- I had the bug.
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I think we collected Blue Chip Stamps… But I was too young to really pay attention at the time.
I do remember shopping in the subsequent “catalog stores” that were, perhaps, inspired by the stamp redemption. We had both Consumers Distributing and Best Products stores nearby. They were a throwback to the old stores where consumers couldn’t touch anything in the store and had to place an order from the catalog that would be immediately fulfilled from the backroom.
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I’m trying to remember where they came from; we had a drawer stuffed FULL of S&H Green Stamps. Mom agreed to let me cash them in if I did all the sticking. I got a couple dozen books full and ended up buying Christmas presents with them; I think I got Mom a coffee maker and set of glasses.
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I used Green Stamps to purchase my first computer, a Commodore Vic 20!
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This reminds me that until relatively recently, the big supermarkets also sold savings stamps. The idea was that you could buy them each week when you came in to do your shopping, then cash the whole lot in at a later date- usually to pay for Christmas food and presents.
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Visit Beloit Wisconsin and your wish is fulfilled! (Corner of Prairie and Shopierre)
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