Trading Stamps
Let's take a walk down memory lane shall we. As a young girl, I remember being given the privilege of licking pages and pages of S&H green stamps into books for my grandmother. The fact that the glue was horrible didn't matter, I just loved watching the books fill up knowing that the reward was something she'd order from the catalog.
As an adult, I collected Blue Chip Stamps and was lucky enough to have a store in the town where Jeff and I lived. Again, the thrill of finishing more and more books was very appealing and then I could go to the store, books in hand, and "buy" something. I have tried hard to remember what fascinating thing I traded my stamps for but I'm betting it was along the lines of a new coffee pot or toaster. Very exciting stuff.
I was sad to see the stamps go by the wayside. However, in doing some research on the internet (The Wizard of all knowledge), I found that Sperry & Hutchinson (S&H) while no longer using trading stamps now have have something called S&H Greenpoints which they introduced in 2000. And, if you are still holding on to old S&H books you can, in fact, still redeem them through the Greenpoints catalog.
There is a set of instructions on the internet (5 steps) on how to redeem your books which looks like a lot of work to me and not nearly as much fun as it was when we dried out our tongues just for the sake of getting something "free".
Another tidbit of history, the S&H stamps were founded in 1896 and were given as a reward for customers paying cash. The stamps were at their most popular from the 1930s through the 1960s.
An example of the value of the trading stamp during the '70's and '80's was one stamp for each 10 cents of merchandise purchased. A typical book took approximately 1200 stamps to fill - or $120.00 in purchases.
I just checked on Ebay and there are auctions, more than you think, of people selling either stamps, filled stamp books or the redemption catalogs - and even more interesting - people are bidding!
I'm amazed at what people are selling and buying.
Happy Saturday.
P
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