Collecting Trading Stamps: Finding Redemption?
04.29.08By The DeanOur local newspaper, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, publishes a syndicated column titled Mr. Music by Jerry Osborne. It’s one of the question – answer type articles that I find entertaining and informative.
While not an ardent music collector, we do have Edison to vinyl to tape and disc formats and a working Victrola in our Deco room.
One item caught my attention in the last edition of Mr. Osborne’s insiteful column, included a question about the lyrics of the Pat Boone song “Speedy Gonzalez”. Speedy said: “Hey Rosita, Come Quick! Down At The Cantina They’re Giving Green Stamps With Tequila.”
The questioner had no idea what green stamps were. Well I’m old enough to remember the saver stamp craze.
Today we receive “Rewards, Points, Miles”, or what have you, for inducements to use the same service, product or credit card over and over. They are recorded and presented on our screens or monthly printouts in snail mail from a host of companies.
This concept is not new folks, and what Pat Boone was wailing on about in that 1962 recording was trading stamps from Sperry & Hutchinson, known as S&H Green Stamps or more commonly just Green Stamps.
Started in 1896, the trading stamp craze reached its peak in the 1960s, when all sorts of stores and services offered stamps from a slew of vendors. A set number of stamps were dispensed based on the dollar amount of your purchase with slow sales days titled Double Stamp Day. Local gasoline companies offered their own stamps, such as Super America and Clark Oil Co.
Top Value (TV) stamps were common as well as Gold Bond and I remember 3 Star stamps also.
I have stamps from a local Dutchland Dairy Store and The Boston Store.
The National Tea had the S&H books with their own advertising on back.
The Plaid Stamps evoked the thriftiness of the Scotch.
Redemption centers for the stamps could be found in cities around the country and in its hay day, the merchandise catalog from S&H was the largest catalog of any type printed. Wisconsin law did not allow residents to redeem the stamps for anything but cash, so a Sunday drive was needed to visit our closest location in Waukegan, Illinois.
The range of goods offered was truly stunning but much of the super high end items were most likely just for show, while the average redeemer received a cooking pan, Nesco, set of bar glasses, ice bucket or knife set.
Today collectors like the oldest and most obscure examples of these stamp books and it helps to have a rubber stamp imprint on back, placing the book with a special local merchant, as the stamps and books, especially the green ones, were distributed in quantities to rival movie tie-in giveaways from a fast food chain, and are often found when digging for treasure at an estate sale.
As advertising collectibles the counter signs and larger metal or plastic outdoor signs are often available at flea markets and antique malls with pricing all over the board, but with any outdoor advertising, color fade and damage affects the pricing.
Lastly, a rememberance from the past. As a young’un, it was my ”reward” to lick and paste the stamps in the redemption books, Yuk, double YUK.
