S & H (Sperry and Hutchinson) Green Stamps
This is what I found out about the green stamps:
Sperry & Hutchinson, distributor of S&H Green Stamps, was probably the most popular of quite a few competing stamp companies. They began offering stamps to retailers back in 1896. The retail organizations bought the stamps from S&H and gave them as bonuses with every purchase based on the amount you bought. The more you bought the more stamps you got.
S&H made their money by selling the stamps to retailers. The trade-off to the retailers was in customer loyalty. Customers flocked to stores that gave stamps. (That's true. If we were going to spend a significant amount of money, we went to a store that offered the stamps.) It was an extremely successful program. According to a publicist for Sperry and Hutchinson, when the program reached its zenith in the mid 60’s, they were printing three times as many stamps as the US Postal Service and its catalog was possibly the largest single publication in the country. It was estimated that 80 percent of US households collected stamps of one sort or another, creating an annual market for S&H alone of about $825 million.
Not everything was listed in the catalog, but you could negotiate with the company for pretty much whatever you wanted. One school in Erie, Pennsylvania even saved up 5.4 million Green Stamps to buy a pair of gorillas for a local zoo! (I didn't know that!)
Stamps programs faded away during the recession of the 1970’s. Sperry and Hutchinson was sold by the founders’ successors in 1981, and was purchased from a holding firm by a member of the founding Sperry family in 1999. At that time, only about 100 stores were offering Green Stamps.
Another thing we could do was look around outside the store for stamps that some customers threw away. Not everyone saved them. Sometimes we could find 10-20 stamps in the parking lot and every once in a while the customer ahead of us would say, "I don't save stamps, do you want them?" Riches! However, I would really rather have lower prices than shopping bonuses like that. However, when the stamps died, the prices went up any how.
Submitted by
rosieposie
at 2/15/2006 12:25:38 PM- I remember that the cashier had a machine with a rotary phone-like dial that she would use to enter your purchase amount - and it would dispense a strip of stamps accordingly. What memories!
Submitted by
NJ
at 2/15/2006 12:43:24 PM- Mary Lou, --of course, the junk drawer. I know I didn't always put the stamps into books right away, --in fact, much later. Just shove them away somewhere till you have time later. And Rosie, how neat that you remember, too! Yes, I think there was a dial thingy to dispense the little bits of stamps. I'm thinking that when you had a big order of groceries, you got some sheets of stamps and then the little bits of stamps, like dollars and cents.
Submitted by
Sally
at 2/15/2006 8:05:07 PM- Yep, I remember! We'd get those books filled up. I can't, however, remember where they were redeemed but I do know that we also saved them for school.
Nowadays, you know, the stores have the 'reward card'. Do you have those up there, Nancy? Even though I work for a grocery, I don't know how much they save actually. Everything is too high, no matter what or where you're shopping.
Submitted by
NJ
at 2/15/2006 8:34:07 PM- About 10 years back we had seasonal promotions where you collect a number of stamps and get a free turkey for Christmas, or maybe a ham for Easter. But, you had to buy $500 worth of groceries to get it. One of my elderly friends was going to the store and buying stuff that she didn't need just to get that free item at the end. Apparently a lot of what she bought went to waste, but she was so focused on the "free" aspect of the program. If we have anything like that right now, I'm not taking part in it. I think there is a gas station that punches a card for you to save a few pennies.
Syndicate this site
Oh GOD! I remember licking books of stamps to get the drawer emptyied! Mom always came home from shopping and shoved the stamps into the kitchen "junk" drawer, and then when ever she wanted something, she would pull them all out and we would have to lick them and fill the books so she could see what she could get. We also saved Blue chip stamps!