During the 1960s and ’70s, if you asked most people what publication had the largest circulation in the United States, they would probably have guessed it was the Sears or JC Penney catalogs. And while both those retailers mailed out millions of copies, it was, in fact, the S&H Green Stamps redemption catalog that reached the most people and had the largest print run of any periodical in America (and quite possibly the world).
Anyone born before about 1975 probably remembers a drawer somewhere in the family home that was over-stuffed with sheets of green, blue, orange, or other-colored trading stamps, given out by retailers and redeemed by consumers for all sorts of merchandise. If you lived in a decent-size town, you could travel to the local redemption center and pick up your merchandise, or order it by mail through a catalog distributed by your local grocer or department store. Below is an S&H Ideabook from the early ’70s.
In my own family home, many lamps, appliances, TV tables, and sporting goods came from the local stamp redemption center, often after marathon pasting sessions around the kitchen table. Here, Mrs. David Dunkley of Colorado poses for an S&H Green Stamp advertisement with her daughters Cathy, Christie Sue, and Virginia amid a room-full of items purchased with trading stamps.
You could get almost anything from the various stamp companies that sprouted up around the country. There were dozens of different stamp schemes, though the S&H (Sperry & Hutchison) Company was the largest, followed by Blue Chip. Here are a couple catalog spreads from a vintage S&H catalog, along with a sheet of S&H Green Stamps.
Most of the trading-stamp programs worked the same way. Merchants purchased the stamps and gave them to customers as an incentive to pay cash, based on a simple formula (1 stamp for every 10 cents spent, or similar). Consumers saved up the stamps by pasting them into booklets, then redeemed them for merchandise. Here are sample stamps from Sav-O, Plaid, 3Star, Wisco99, Merchants and Blue Chip, along with some sample booklet pages.
Some stamp companies were local, some national, and others were set up to benefit a specific merchant or category of merchants. All were designed to produce customer loyalty in a market where prices and service may have been very similar. Here are books from S&H, Blue Chip, Thrifty Green, King Corn, United, and Thrifty Orange.
The stamp companies are long gone, and with only one exception, those stamps kicking around the kitchen drawer or hiding in the glove box of your rusting Corvair are now worthless. However, S&H is still an active company with a digital equivalent of green stamps called Greenpoints. You can still redeem your S&H Green Stamps by trading them for Greenpoints at Greenpoints.com.
There is also an interesting tie between trading stamps and a current Wall-Street favorite, Berkshire Hathaway. A young Warren Buffett, impressed with the cash reserves of the Blue Chip Stamps Company, began buying shares of that firm in 1970 and by 1983 owned a controlling interest. All trading stamp companies held a certain amount of money aside on their balance sheets to pay for future goods that consumers might redeem. But many stamps were never redeemed and there was always a certain amount of this reserve considered “float” that could be used for investment purposes.
Buffett used the reserves at Blue Chip to purchase several companies that have come to define Berkshire Hathaway, including Wesco Financial and Sees Candy. And though the primary business of Blue Chip faded quickly after the economic recession of the ’70s and a move by retailers toward low-price competition (and away from gimmicks like trading stamps), Berkshire Hathaway (and Buffett’s) fortune was partly constructed using the glue of Blue Chip’s trading stamps.
My mother still lives with a number of items acquired by redeeming trading stamps (we were pretty much a Blue Chip family), and I often think back to catalog items I coveted as a child. In our house the stamps were considered family currency and almost always went to buy something everyone could use, or perhaps a wedding or birthday gift for a neighbor. By the time I was old enough to substantially collect my own trading stamps, the field had dried up.
Do you have memories of pasting stamps into booklets at the kitchen table, or of a favorite item acquired with trading stamps? Did you lick the stamps directly or use a sponge? Please share your memories by using the comment button
This article was last modified on May 18, 2023
This article was first published on April 18, 2008
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I’ve got three stamp books lose stamps as well.. eagle stamps the name on front covers
I have three books with some loose stamps as well
Dear Mr. Gable,
I am assisting Dr. Dianne Harris with images for a book she has written on post-war houses in the U.S. As part of my assistance, I am attempting to track down some of the images you have included in your blog on trading stamps. While the author and publisher are handling copyright issues, we are anxious to find high quality images (300 dpi). Given your title “Scanning around with Gene,” I’m hoping that you might have high quality images of these trading stamp ads? If so, I wonder if you would be willing to provide these? I’m happy to answer any questions you have about the book, our intent with image use, or anything else! You can email me at am******@******is.edu. Thank you for your in-depth blogging!
Ours were stashed in a drawer across from the wall phone. We’d save both green and blue chip stamps and trade them with my aunts if we didn’t have enough of one to get what we wanted. I have vivid memories of walking into the Blue Chip redemption center…I remember the counter that displayed the items we could redeem our stamps for and even the window where you would trade in your books and wait for the woman in the blue smock to return with the toaster or doll or set of knives. I loved it when they came out with the large stamps that were so much easier to use to fill a page. I’d forgotten about the message, “Do not mix stamps on this page.” Some times we would be missing one or two small stamps and we’d go through every drawer in the house to find one. We went often, traded our stamps and felt so good about our deals. At the drug store where I worked in 1969-1972, we had the dispenser that we could use to dial out the number of stamps the customers earned. The thought did occur to me that they would be easy to filch, but I never did it. But when customers said, “I don’t save those, you can have them…” I didn’t pass up the opportunity to add to our collection. Ahhh. Sweet memories.
My gramma had a junk drawer in the kitchen full of sheet after sheet of S&H green stamps. She would let me lick and place them on the sheets and tell me what a good job I did, which made me feel really happy and special. I’m sure she redeemed them at times, but I think they were mostly just collected and left unused. I forgot about them until I saw your article and instantly thought of her. :)
Yes, we saved, licked and glued, and got many precious things for our home that we could not afford – a pair of sewing scissors, a canister set, a toaster, a set of kitchen knives, and even a bicycle for my daughter. Such a glow did they bring when we went to the stamp store! We had no money for anything but rent and groceries; they were precious to us. Wish they were still around. I remember the thrill and wish it was back.
To the tune of “Greensleeves:”
Green stampds were all she gave
Greenstamps were all I took
Greenstamps were all I saved
And I pasted them all in my green stamp book…
https://f2.org/humour/songs/greenstamps.html
I do vividly remember pasting the stamps in the S&H Greenstamp book at our red Formica kitchen table in the early 60’s. I used a yellow sponge. I think we actually redeemed them for something, but don’t remember what. I also remember looking at the catalogue and seeing lots of things I wanted, and realizing we would NEVER get that color TV!
The area where I grew up when I was in the elementary years of my life didn’t have stores that offered green stamps…. But I remember an episode of the Brady Bunch where they were saving stamps and trying to buy something for the whole family. If I recall the episode correctly the boys had one stash, the girls had another. They ended up pooling their stamps…having a major stamp licking party and arriving at the redemption center too late.. :( Don’t worry for those of you who didn’t see the episode the kindly man that worked at the center opened up just for them and let them redeem their stamps. And a fun time was had by all, well except maybe for the kindly man at the redemption center. Anyway I remember being really disappointed that we didn’t have stamps in our local area. By the time I was a teen and we moved to another state stamps had died off. Oh to be able to have redeemed them even just once.
My childhood memory of those stamps: my parents had a wall-mounted chest of drawers. It had about fifteen little drawers, which measured maybe four inches across. It was where they kept odds and ends, like paper clips, rubber bands, and… rolls and rolls of S&H green stamps. I was always struck by the iconic quality of those things. But I can’t say we ever spent family time licking those suckers.
I cannot remember the specific items we redeemed S&H Green stamps for since it was a regular activity at our house, but I REALLY remember the time my brother and I licked and pasted several books’ worth of stamps to the large window in the living room. I think my mother soaked them off with a wet sponge and used paste to stick them in the books. that she was none too pleased with us is another part of the memory.
My dad collected these things in a brown paper bag. They were tossed in in little tiny bits and pieces – a couple here from Skinner’s Grocerette, a few more from M.E. Moses 5 and Dime, larger streamers of them from Brookshires Grocery…Then, one Saturday, it was made clear to me that the day would be spent gluing these pale green and red stamps into these cartoon booklets and at the end of it, we’d go to the south side of town and get ourselvs a surprise. About 5 hours and countless damp and wavy booklets later, we headed to the S&H Green Stamp redemption center. All those stamps, all that time, and I think we got some barbeque tools. I remember that after that, the place we tossed the Green Stamps was the trash. Still, good times…
My mom saved up enough to surprise my dad with a recliner. And miracle of miracles, she actually had a couple of books left over, and let me get a Beatles album. ( I think it was one of the cheaper American reissues.) She was soooo old-fashioned that this memory still stands out, along with the time she actually bought me some mascara.
We can still get saver stamps at our small town grocery stores! (Yes I really do live in the “country”) If we fill up a card of 18 stamps we get 99 cent eggs or a 99 cent gallon of milk.
You never know unless you visit small mom-and-pop stores, maybe you can too.
Thanks for this great little story! I included the factoid about S&H still being active in my alumni newsletter. I “bought” many an item with Blue Chip and S&H stamps back in the day.
Amazing how the image of a S&H stamp can make me feel 5 again!! :) It was my job to keep track of the book and as soon as we got home from the store the first thing I ALWAYS did was paste the stamps in. I only remember going to the redemption center once….the china was beautiful.
I grew up in a small town and didn’t collect trading stamps until the mid-70s, when I graduated college and starting working. I collected a QuickSaver book and remembered how little the stamps were worth when I went to the store to redeem it for something. Then they went out of business.
Wow. This one brings back memories. We were an S&H family, and I remember licking those green stamps until my tongue was numb.
I also remember that cursive “S” in the S&H logo. I thought it was the oddest little scribble until I learned to write in cursive.