Now I see where those TV trays came from! I knew the living room lamp came from S&H, but so did Mom’s tray. Thanks for the wonderful picture.

Ha! That pic looks like it must have been taken inside the store in Texarkana.

My grandmother would save up long strips of Green Stamps and the little booklets. When the weekend arrived, she would be off from her factory sewing job and my parents would drive to Pleasant Grove to drop us off with Grandma. Often, the other cousins would also get dropped off; fun times!

We would word together to install all the little stamps on the grids of the pages. Once, I was also lucky enough to get to shop in the S&H store (just like Sundance has in the photo). We had a chiming clock that was purchased with Green Stamps.

Thanks for the memories!

My Grandmother collected books and books of them, and used them for things around the house.
I don’t recall many things because she used them for things in that showroom picture. Pretty things to have around the little parsonage house she and her preacher husband were provided by the Church.
I’m glad she used them for pretty things for herself, it would have been the only way a preacher’s wife might get nice things.

I remember the stamps well, pasting them in the books – I don’t remember what Mom redeemed them for, but I definitely remember the location/store front with it’s S&H sign hanging out over the sidewalk at the corner of the parking area where we went to redeem them.

I remember licking stamps and filling books for my mom. I can still taste it. Yuck.

The S &H redemption store was next to the Baskins and Robbins ice cream shop… a double treat for the visit

My mother saved those things religiously from her shopping at White Stores, a big grocery chain at the time –a time when “color” was not a trigger to controversy. My seventh grade teacher explained to us students that you’re paying for the stamp premium in the increased cost of the groceries, and she was exactly right. Nothing is free in a capitalist economy–somebody’s paying and it’s usually you.
That said, it’s still a good marketing scheme still in use today: airline miles, cash back credit cards, customer rewards programs, the reward given after so much purchasing (Ace Hardware), etc.
Hey, if it works to drive business, why not? The old “something for nothing” ploy works across all genders, ethnicities, income levels, and ages. Indeed, why not?

I also remember, during crippling Carter-era inflation and taxation, a barter system set up by local small business owners. It was basically trades, ledgers and hand-signed receipts/credits. Worked for a few months but could not scale. Maybe could have worked with something with better backing, like Green Stamps.

Our Kroger supermarket (about a quarter the size of a current day supermarket) gave green stamps, and the M&J (Mulkey & Jackson) supermarket gave yellow stamps. Seems like Eckerd Drug Store gave yellow stamps, too.

All I remember those stamps being traded for was stuff for fishing outings, either for us or the grandparents.

But that’s probably the only thing I would have noticed at that age. If mom had gotten a new stand for the phone… I doubt I’d have realized it.

My parents saved them carefully. My mother put them in the drawer with receipts from every purchase. My father taught me how to carefully cut them out along the perforated edges and fill the little books, which were then put n a different drawer in his office. I think there was a hard cover book showing all the things you could get and how many S & H stamps it took to get them — I spent hours looking at the book and looking at how many stamps we had and looking forward to being able to purchase some nice things. It taught me a lot about saving – which was a good thing. In retrospect a great thing.

I lost my family early and was out on my own at age 16. It all worked out fine. There were plenty of lean times. When I got the Big Break with the Good Job with the Big Company I looked at my colleagues making the same amount I was and marveled at their spending habits. I still do. I guess I am still saving up those stamps somewhere in my head … waiting to purchase something until I can afford it. Guess what ? It’s more fun and more enjoyable when you actually purchase it and never have to worry about debt.

I am pretty sure my mother redeemed books and books of stamps for a mid-century modern desk and chair (not on rollers, a proper chair). The desk and chair were made of walnut, not a veneer. I think the brand was Stanley or maybe Bassett. My sister now has that desk. It still looks good.

I remember the stamps and helping add them to the books. It seems like we were always giving ours to some club or something trying to buy supplies. Was that a thing? What year did it stop?

Yes we collected Green Stamps and there was Yellow stamps as well. Marketing idea for Target, Rainbow Stamps.

With three sons, Mom used to save the Green Stamps and then use them to take us to either the Texas State Fair or Six Flags. We used to help lick ’em and paste ’em in the book. Good times.

I came from a lower middle class working family and my folks used S&H Green Stamps, Red Stamps, and Plaid Stamps to furnish their starter home with nice quality furniture. Their merch was simple but well crafted.

Also remember Red Stamps. Plaid Stamps and Clark Oil Stamps.

My mother collected the books to redeem for as wedding presents.

From chgo. Jewel foods gave out small raffle type tickets that you would peel open to reveal a number, then you watch horse races on Friday night and if your ticket had the winning number for their special race you won a ham! Would watch the Friday night races with my grandparents, it was the late 1960’s…lol

Ahh, memories! Green Stamps and Orange Stamps depending on the store. I loved getting to fill the little booklets. What my mom and grandma got with them I don’t remember. I was usually in school. Also I remember them getting things from the Jewel Tea Company. Autumn pattern ceramic serving/mixing bowls, serving platter, sugar bowl and creamer, butter dish. I still have some items and my husband had some of his mom’s to add to the collection. We had a Fuller Brush man too.

Sociologist have long discussed the values and cultural norms as the glue that binds a civil society together. Personally I think it was the adhesive on the back of those stamps. Still taste it to this day……

I still have the electric knife and the box it came in which came from S&H Green Stamps. I use the knife on special holiday dinners.

My Mom got me a metal book shelf and a machinist’s tool chest when I was around 16, that was 59 years ago. I just looked and that chest sells for $850 now. Oh, and I still have the chest.

As an adult, redeemed them for Coleman ice chest, 2 gal Igloo water jug, charcoal smoker/grill. Things I probably wouldn’t have gotten without the stamps.

My mom took me in the store as a kid. It was special because it was different from other stores. The anticipation of saving up & picking out an item made you feel like you were getting a big prize. We did not have a lot of money, so going in there was a treat. Got a yellow, green, and orange printed blanket. Still use it to this day & it’s probably close to 45 years old.

Still remember the taste of those stamps! Thanks for the memories.

My mother had 8 children b4 she was 31. The last was born in 1959. I remember helping her glue the green stamps into the booklets.

I just love the togetherness in that picture!

Mom had a pile saved up and i believe that same stack was still in the basement 10 yr ago when she passed away.Big thanks for the memory. lotts of good memories from that time in our lives.

Does anyone remember the Sinclair gas stations and the green, plastic, dinosaur piggy banks and the green dinosaur soaps? I grew up using that soap in the bathtub.
S&H green stamps. My sister and I used to lick & stick them on book after book. I know my Mom got a brand new electric skillet with those stamps.
Good times.

OMG! In the department store photo, lower right, are the EXACT same TV tables we had. What a stroll down memory lane.

Still have a full set of heavy green pedestal glasses and a few books of stamps. Wednesday used to be “grocery day,” because you got double stamps for the money spent.

Yes, remember those Green Stamp Books. My wife, when she was still with us, saved them religiously and would cash them in for who knows what. I believe there are still GS Books stashed about the house. A part of history of an era.

I remember them. I also remember BLUE CHIP STAMPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Chip_Stamps

I remember helping put them into the books. Both Grandmothers and my mom saved them. I learned about rationing during the war, coupons, and shopping correctly to stretch a dollar.

I attribute this time with the older woman who raised me as to my ability to double our food budget.

Great life lessons. My mom is now 87 and Grandmothers long gone. The best mentors I could have ever wished for.

Good call for green stamp memories!

My first scuba mask and fins were purchased with H&S Green Stamps…

I just have been 10 years old…

Mom got Gold Bond stamps, which she got a couple of wall decorations. When we got much older, we teased her about them. She was understandably proud of saving all of those stamps. We lived in a small town and I don’t think any place gave out the S&H Green stamps. When she redeemed them it was via snail mail. Thanks for the reminder of less complicated times.

Good Times when I was young and America was Great. Mom had nine of us, so you bet she stretched her grocery budget at the National Grocery chain store with Green Stamps for house hold items.

Who remebers pulling up to the gas pump then where a filling station Attendant would fill your gas tank with .35/gal gas, check your oil and/or tire pressure, clean your windshield,… And then ask if you wanted a set of kitchen china for shopping there,…. what we call Lagniappe in Louisiana. The stations had all kinds of Lagniappe gifts back then in the Real America.

2001-2004 I taught at a private university in Hiroshima. The grocery store near my apartment offered their version of Green Stamps, called…..Green Stamps. I purchased a bowl for stamp storage at the local 100 yen shop, the Japanese version of the Dollar Store. When the job was about to end I took the stamps to the grocery store to redeem them and was instructed to paste them all into a booklet. I returned to the apartment, spent over an hour licking stamps, and returned the filled booklet to the store. My prize? A bowl identical to that which I purchase for 100 yen almost three years earlier. Now I had a pair of dollar bowls. Since that experience I refuse all offers of points, stamps, whatever – just take my money and give me the item!

A barbecue grill (brown and orange, very 70s) and a wheeled carrier for my brother’s golf bag. My mom’s drawer was full of tangled skeins of stamps waiting to be pasted into books.

It must seem touchingly bourgeois today, the idea of deferring gratification and sitting around the dinner table counting to see if we had enough for a pilgrimage to the redemption center.

Goodness, I’ve not thought about Green Stamps in years. Yes, my mother collected them and so did my great aunt and grandmother. I can’t remember, off hand, what for what products they turned them in. But I remember my mother and father buying gasoline at stations that gave the stamps as well as other retailers who did so as well. We had several “books” running at the same time depending on who did the collecting.

My family still uses the plates every night that my grandma Bella purchased using S&H green stamps. They still look like new.

Redeeming S&H Green Stamps was like Christmas at any time of the year. Great memories of licking the stamps and lining them up in the books perfectly on each page. I also remember my mother and grandmother combining books to get different appliances sooner. The first “purchase” I remember was an electric can opener. My grandmother got it but she liked her wall mounted manual can opener in the pantry much better than the electric model which sat on the counter so Mama got it!!

Mom and dad collected not only S & H green stamps, but Top Value stamps as well.

We would take a flight of 12 AH-1G Cobras to Texas from Ft. Sill OK just to refuel and get books and books of Green Stamps, which we promptly gave to the Operations officer. He furnished his home.

My parents were both smokers and as such they saved the coupons from the packs of Belair and Raleigh cigarettes, they where bound in a set number and stored in shoe boxes with the count on the lid.

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I can remember licking the stamps and pasting in the book. I think it was the local A&P Supermarket where my mother redeemed them.

Southern California they were competing with Blue Chip stamps (late 50’s/early 60’s). I think my very own snooze-alarm clock was the first thing I got with some of those that Mom let me use some of the books for. Later I got my first camera with them. And, yes, that photo looks just like a redemption store from the day.

Green Stamps were so much fun! It was a special outting to take our bags of stamp books to Dallas, TX off Stemmons Frwy to the store to shop. Wonderful memories.

Oh yeah! Rich people shopped at the stores that gave Green Stamps!! Publix was the upscale shopping.

Unfortunately, our budget was Winn-Dixie Quick Check.

That’s OK, I was happy with my Oscar Meyer Fried Bologna Sandwiches!

I don’t remember what grandma bought but my mouth hated the taste of those stamps.

You just make my eyes water. We kept the stamps in a kitchen drawer until we had time to stick in the books. WHAT SPECIAL TIMES WE LIVED.