Here’s a fun blast from the past. Yesterday, someone mentioned S&H Green Shield stamps and the stuff we used to purchase with them.
Today, I was having a conversation about communicating old school with a person, and about how the generation soon to come will find new methods to avoid the censors and monitors. I mentioned the Green Shield stamp reminder and we had a blast reminiscing about all the stuff we used them for.
I think just about every small appliance and cookware for my very first apartment was the result of using S&H Greenshield stamps.
So the conversation expands…. Date yourself. How many of you remember them, and what did you use them for?
Is “S&H Green Shield” a Secret Decoder name for the recipes and general interest posts? If so, I like it! Just enjoying ourselves in the Treehouse under the Green Shield…
I bet these gals cashed in Green Stamps
I’m betting the plan is curlers out when dinner is about 10 minutes from done and husband is pulling in the driveway
Does anyone remember young ladies using orange juice cans for curlers? I think they were used on the top for lift.
Toilet paper rolls, my sister used them.
Remember using toilet rolls for something else in my formative years and, and NO, it did not concern rodents!
Ha
Oh yes! My older sisters used them at night. They were always cranky the next day from lack of sleep. Ahh vanity.
Beer can too. Also a beer rinse after shampooing. After teased hair came throwing your long hair over an ironing board and pressing it with a mildly warm iron. Going back before this time, maybe 1960, girls sprinkled sugar on the floor as they walked. It was unintentional, as they soaked their crenalin pettycoats in sugar water to to stiffen them so their full skirts had the proper poof. But then came Alice Lon of Lawrence Welk fame with her beautiful 48 yards of tulle colorful petty coats
That is Funny 😄
I was just thinking about my sister with the natural red curly hair Ironing it on the ironing board to make it straight , hahaha !
Yikes !
And soft spoolies replaced hard bobbie-pins
I loved the soft spoolies.!!!
Beer cans and stale beer for body.
My college roommate used an empty veggie can to roll up her frizzy hair. She gathered her hair into a ponytail on the top of her head & rolled it around the can. She had a hair dryer with the big plastic cap that went over your head. She’d use that to de-frizz her hair in between classes.
Talk about a sequel to “Knives…”!
Can you imagine women going out of the house looking like that?
I can🤣🤣
More likely Saturday … and we girls were washed and rolled for Sunday Morning Church.
My mom was dolled up with the towering BeeHive doo,working the cash register for AlpaBeta in El Cajon Ca…..She probably cashed those gals out.
🤣🤣🤣🥰🥰🤣🤣 Brunette in the middle asking coach,…. ……why aren’t my times improving?🤣🤣😍🥰
AKA “Cone of Silence”?
My better half remembers her first camera purchased with Green Stamps, I might even have a book of them somewhere
My mom used her for dishes
I remember going into an S&H store once. We didn’t usually shop at the luxury stores back then.
Edit – but I sure do remember lickin the stamps… and the rarety of a 5 or 10.
I remember adding them to those books and the joy of filling them up!
I remember, my mom used them. I got to paste them in the book, but no clue what she bought with them!
I pasted them in the booklets, too. My mom traded them in for things for me and my sister. There was the Fuller brush guy who came house to house and sold stuff. My mom of course had Tupperware parties. She also had Sarah Coventry Jewelry parties. I loved all that. It was fun. Simpler times. Life was grand!
Amway, too. and there was some brand of makeup, can’t remember,..
Coscot “Interplanetary Makeup”? My mom sold it. 😂
Avon!
I still remember all the fragrances.
Ding dong…
Mary Kay? The top sellers in their company got to drive pink cadillacs. It was good makeup.
How about Merle Norman? It was touted as the make-up that one could “eat.”
Mom’s stash.
I purchased my first tackle box with green stamps!
I got a tackle box and a Schrade Walden sheath knife via Green Stamps.
The other rival stamp was Top Value (yellow), but we got S&H Green Stamps where we shopped.
Green stamps, late 70’s early 80’s newlywed apartment…wooden wine glass rack for the wall…held 16 wine glasses, small hand held mixer…clear plastic cook book stand (that was cool–held the cookbook on the counter and the food did not splash on the pages). All that took about 20 books…hard to save that many alone (new groom was a navy submariner, gone a lot).
Boynton Beach, Grand Union gave out some sort of blue stamp equivalent…dish towels….
Green stamps were still around in the early 80s? I think my family stopped using them a lot sooner than that. Maybe my family moved somewhere where they weren’t as commonly used.
I bought my dishes with the stamps in the ‘80’s. Jacksonville Florida
Guess so..per Wiki.
”S&H Green Stamps was a line of trading stamps popular in the United States from 1896 until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson.”
I thought green stamps were long gone by then.
Navy Exchange had a lot of stuff…. specially if stationed outside of CONUS ( Hawai’i was simply awesome ).
We saved them by the books saving up for who knows what.
OMG Sundance I am old enough to remember my sis & me licking those S & H stamp’s putting them in the booklets . We got good stuff too I recall. O my back in the day.
Same here. My brother and mom and I licked piles of them — till we hit on the idea of running them over a damp sponge! Duh! So much better than wearing out your tongue!
Exactly – I used a sponge and pasted them the booklets for my mom. In high school and college I worked in a grocery store where we gave out stamps. Can’t remember if it was S&H or Gold Bond stamps.
Mom & Grandma would put a wet sponge on a plate so we didn’t have to lick them. Guess I was a bit spoiled. 😂
They were industrious, and used their time well.
Every kids house that I went into as a kid had a book of Green Stamps in the kitchen- including my own.
But I don’t know what all those moms were buying with them.
Was just a small kid when S&H green stamps were still being used. Have vague memories of pasting a handful of them into a booklet, which then I’m sure went to Mom to actually use to buy something with. Am not sure whether I earned the stamps myself for some small purchase or whether they were given to me just to put them into the book. However, I wonder if those green stamps helped in some small way lead me into collecting postage stamps from around the world when I got a little older?
Don’t forget those Top Value stamps?
Were those the gold/yellow ones ?
I wonder if they were the ones I got at the Kroger store.
I had forgotten until you mentioned them now. Thanks.
I was going to mention the Yellow and Red TV (Top Value) stamps. That’s what my mom used the most.
If I remember correctly where I lived, A&P Grocery and Kroger along with some gas stations used to give them out in denomination equal with your total purchase price..
You could look in the merchandise catalog,( wish book like a Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog) to see the amount of the stamps the item you wanted required to obtain it. Then when you collected enough you could trade them in and pick up your merchandise at the redemption center.
Plaid stamps family here. (The A&P chain.)
You are right. It was Plaid Stamps at A&P. TV Stamps were at Kroger.
I used to hand them out with the customer’s gasoline purchase. Of course, I was required to wash the windshield and offer to check the engine oil.
“Wipe the windows, check the tires, check the oil, dollar gas”
— Chuck Berry, Too Much Monkey Business
Wish they still had them today….
I could use a new knee.
Lol!! Me too!
Rub castor oil on your knee. Helps for the pain
my family also bought a lot of kitchen appliances and goods (silverware, etc.). These were very common and usable items found in S&H stores.
People were trained to be savers back then and saw the results by using S&H green stamps. Today there is nothing and nobody teaching how small incremental savings add up.
I definitely remember the S&H Green Stamps! Also Gold Bond Stamps. Also remember when gas stations would give free items (like glassware, etc) with fill ups of 8 gallons or more.
Yep, Gas premiums. We had a local station that gave out 8×10 color glossy reprints of the dragsters and funny cars that ran at the SoCal drag strips. I think I still have Big John Mazmanian’s Candy apple red barracuda funny car stuck away somewhere. It was a beautiful car and a contender every friday night at Irwindale raceway.
Dang, we got to see Can Am (unlimited class) road races at Riverside raceway, and liked the Kiwi, McLaren. The Porsche 917 12-cylinder beast came out and THAT invention killed Can-Am. Nobody could beat that car.
Union 76 station also gave out presidential coins that were stamped out of aluminum. If you completed the set you won a pretty good cash prize.
Retailers used to do things that made people happy. Now you’re lucky if some sullen clerk helps you find what you need.
And nobody is going to clean your windshield or check you oil or tire pressure.
I have very little personal experience with them, although they did continue to exist after I reached the age of majority, but I can’t see those things now or hear mention of them without hearing Peter Gabriel sing, “Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout!”
A&P was the only store in our little town that had them, not sure what mom ever got, I used some to get a Coleman white gas lantern that I used quite a bit and would still have it if it were not stolen (among other things) from my home while I was moving to Colorado back in 2011.
I loved green stamps and remember we got so excited when we filled a book.
We decided as a family what it was our goal to buy with them and then we’d save up.
It was particularly fun when we’d get a big sheet of them but we were also very careful not to misplace any of the singles.
I remember them, but I don’t remember ever trading them in. My siblings and I used to paste them in the books though. Maybe my mom used them for something. I seem to remember other trading stamps from way back but don’t recall the name.
It was a different world back then. When I was in high school my friend and I got a job going door to door with Fuller Brush items. I remember being so surprised when the women were excited to see us. I also remember a man visiting us often to sell my mom things from the Jewel Tea Company.
She bought my sisters and I matching dresses from them.
One of my jobs as a youngster was to take all the S&H Green Stamps my mother received from shopping and paste them into the savings books. There were so many that I used a damp sponge to wet the backs of the stamps, thereby saving my tongue from slobbering all over the stamps. Yankee Ingenuity at a young age.
Yes, that was The Boss way to dampen the S&H Green Stamps.
We used a damp sponge too!
I remember. My siblings and I would help my Mom paste the stamps in the books. We would go with her to the stamps store to redeem them. She got all kinds of things. For some reason I remember a set of kitchen canisters and a matching bread box. Harvest gold and brown. So stylish.
.
Is that you, sis. . .?
I got a camp knife and hatchet combo. Dont remember how many stamps it cost. Very good quality but as I found out one night on ambush patrol not ideal for fighting. I replaced them with a lagana combat tomahawk and Randle fighter. I kept the Knife/ hatchet combo till the late 90’s and gave them to my nephew. He still takes them camping. Boy thinks he’s cool.
That is so cute.
Green Stamps from local stores that had quality foodstuffs. Still have the chess pieces from a Green Stamp purchase, but field they once inhabited is missing. Metaphor activated.
I used my stamps to buy a high chair for my first daughter, in 1977. I used that chair for all three of my children, the last being born in December 1981. A wonderful memory!
Thank you Sundance.
My mother gave me lots of them and I purchased a pink coral set of plates and coffee mugs.
If I went to her house now and looked through old photo boxes, I would probably find more. 🤣.
Mom told us when we grew up that most of our Christmas gifts came from the stamp store.
Christmas was so much less commercial — yet so much more magical!
Piling in the car at night to go look at neighborhoods all lit up. Listening to Christmas albums while making fudge. The fudge was put in saved commercial cookie tins to give as gifts. Life was magical.
I have lived and traveled all over the world as an adult. Yet, my humble beginnings, my childhood, was filled with wonder. Simple things were so special and valuable.
In SW Ohio back in the 1970s, we used the yellow Top Value stamps that worked just like the green stamps.
My mom redeemed a bunch for a bar! Put the thing in the living room.
Then she and dad had a party. That bar moved from NJ to TX.
Last time I saw it was 1997, when mom went to be with Jesus.
In Charleston, SC, I traded for concert tickets in the 70’s with the books my mom would give me. Great memories.
I remember them but am a touch too young to enjoy using them.
When I cleaned up my grandparent’s and parent’s homes after they passed, I came across more of those stamps in the oddest locations, lol.
It puts a smile on my face thinking of all the stamp stashes I found. I know both grandma and mom squirreled them away for presents when possible.
Publix in Florida giving Bonus green stamps for $10 orders or more allowed me to get many pieces of fishing and snorkeling gear.
I won a whole bunch of yellow Top Value stamps in a radio contest at the age of 12. The entire local redemption center had nothing I cared for, so Mom got a new mixer and a toaster.
They are definitely old school. I’m 65+ closer to 70 and remember the green stamp books that my parents had. I don’t know what the bought with them but they definitely filled the books out. A memory from way back when, thanks.
Before moving, two years ago, I did all of my business in an old, family operated pharmacy. Believe it or not, up until, 2021, they still have green stamps with every purchase.
I always paid my stamps forward to the next customer who collected them.
My Mom had a black contraption that you put water in the base, it has a brush type thing on top and it’s purpose was for dragging sheets of S&H Green stamps across it to wet them before gluing them in the books. It was always my job!! I recall we would save up for special items to make Mom’s life easier (appliances, gadgets, beauty products). The Good “ole Days!!
I remember helping my Mother and my Grandmother put the stamps in the book. We were able to outfit our kitchen with new cookware and dishes. I think we acquired silverware, too. I don’t remember what else we did get, but fond memories. It was a very big deal to us.
Saved em! Big deal… used to fill books…figgered out use a sponge for the stamps. Many books. Used a few to trade for a Nokona baseball glove…back in 50’s. What a POS it was … but then yer stuk. Not like Amazon. Mom used many books fer stuf. Fond memories!
I think I still have scars on my tongue from licking all those Green Stamps. I remember my Mom buying an electric can opener with some. She ended up hating it and sold it to a friend.
My Mom collected them and got many items. I was quite young but I do remember going with her to pick out marble lamps. Fine enough to be in our living room which was reserved for guests. During one of my parents cocktail parties, one of the high society guests complimented my mother and her choice of the lamps. I did inadvertently embarrassed mom when I told the rich party guests that the lamps where purchased with green stamps. Sigh. Oh to be 4 years old again.
She is still with us, in her late nineties, and just had to down-size. I asked for the lamps and she knew I always loved them. They are now in my spare bedroom which is reserved for only the finest guests.
I remember when our family moved into our 3 rd house, the first two story, and we had a front “parlor” that we kids weren’t allowed to play in, it was just for “recieving guests”.
Weren’t allowed to (and DIDN’T!) hide their when playing hide and seek, or anything.
And we FOLLOWED the rules, lol.
Yes, everyday living was in the “family room”. The “living room” was reserved for my parents’ cocktail parties and Christmas. My dad would light the fireplace on Christmas morn. The wonderful lights from the tree and the window candles, and the smell of pine filled the house. Too many presents and then a delicious breakfast. Sad that that time has past by.
It seemed like the whole neighborhood came to the cocktail dinner parties. Very swanky. Everyone dressed up — men in nice suits and the wives in cocktail dresses, pearl necklaces, and too much perfume. Mom spent weeks before hand trying out new dinner recipes on us kids. Young kids don’t really appreciate beef burgundy and other high cultured recipes. The next morning was clean up and my job was collecting and emptying the overflowing ashtrays. Cigarettes and pipes. Yuk! Its why I’ve never smoked.
Memory lane … we had a duplex on a military base … the base knocked out a wall and gave us both sides because our family was so big … we dubbed it “our side” and the “good side” … we NEVER played in the good side!
Aww…
S&H, bell bottoms, Foghat and GUNSMOKE. I remember it well.
Those were the days 👍
I remember Gunsmoke, and even remember the deputy BEFORE Festus,..My three sons, Father knows best, ..and yes I wore bell bottoms, and a black leather top hat, lol.
Chester… played by Dennis Weaver.
In my era, clothes that were worn right out of the dryer were called, “rough dries.”
Slacks that didn’t reach the back of the heel were called, “high waters.”
In my era I had a Sunday dress for winter & a Sunday dress for summer – they were my party dresses, too … I had my Catholic School jumper w/a couple of “Peter-pan” collar shirts … play clothes were old clothes, hand-me-downs & thrift store clothes.
BEST live concert I ever saw was Foghat! Saw them on the “Stoned Blue” tour. RIP “Lonesome Dave”!!!
My mom was a serious collector of filling up those books. Pretty sure all our glassware came from there, and other trinkets.
GreenStamps was the very first Rewards program.
Good ‘ol days
S&H Green Stamps……… there are half filled stamp books sitting in drawers all across America…..
Retired Magistrate here: I would like to have the Corvette that the housewife was driving, especially in the snow. Probably not to much traction though.
Some people have to learn the hard way, Vette in winter in Colorado, was going back to the “laundry on the hill” which should have been the first clue, found a guy in a yellow Vette with its nose in the big ditch at front entrance, had to laugh @ the dumb donkey, parked next door to get my laundry…. tourists. SMH
It’s definitely a ’63 – ’67 generation Vette. My guess is a ’63 with the split rear window. I improved the quality all the way and slowed down to the slowest speed. At 1:06 – 1:08 and again at 1:18 – 1:21 I think I see the split rear window? Positraction was an option on the ’63 – ’67 Vettes which may not be all wheel/4 wheel drive but is light years better in the snow than a standard rear wheel drive car. 17,500 Vettes out of 21,500 ’63 Vettes had positraction.
It would be an ideal car for magistrating!
I remember them well, including the stamp wars where we got 10x, 20x, even 40x stamps. I think I got a camera and some bowls with mine. Nothing exciting. Gasoline was 23.9¢/gal for premium then.
As a kid, it was my job to fill the books and do all the stamp licking. The pages were a lot easier to fill with the high value stamps. Filling a page with the small 1 valued stamps took forever! Best thing we redeemed them for was a travel thermos and cooler to use for family picnics and going to the drive in. Who had money to buy sodas and food at the concession stand?
The last thing I remember getting with green stamps was an electric griddle which I still have and it works great. Don’t make them like that any more
My grand parents, both sets and my parents used books and books of S&H green stamps to get piece by piece all of the dishes, cookware, glassware, knives, forks and spoons, pots and pans each had. I can still taste the stamps. My grand mother would let me carry the treasure from the store. Those were great days. I turned 65 this year. I may still have a book of them in my grand mothers memories.
I came to St. Louis in 1962 from the Ozarks, a newly wed. DH thought it was funny I didn’t know what S&H Green Stamps were. There was a Kroger store near our apartment in south St. Louis and they also had stamps of some kind. I don’t remember what I used them for, but I’m sure they came in handy. I do remember going to the grocery store and couldn’t fill a grocery bag for $15. Today a steak would be more than that.
Yes, of course I remember!
I worked as a cashier at the Grand Union when I was 15 yrs. old!!
My Mom bought a bunch of stuff with those stamps, right along with my older, married sisters.
Although, we never, ever left our house with rollers in our hair…N.E.V.E.R.!!
The bowling alley had green stamp night, it was always packed.
Omg 😳 remember those too!
I, like many who have posted already remember my mom handing me the books and telling me to pick and attach all the stamps. Can’t remember what she bought with them, but definitely for things around the house.
I also remember the catalog stores like Brand Names where we got many household appliances, etc
The showrooms were kind of small with some items from the catalog on display and you filled out a sheet with the item number and a staff person would disappear into the warehouse in back and bring out the item.