S&H Green Stamps 

My grandmother collected many of the promotional items. Stamps was just one. Wedding Crystal oats had cut glass glasses. Flour sacks had kitchen towels. She had collected an entire set of Currier and Ives dinner ware that was her “ good China” collecting these promotions was fun.

I remember my mom collecting the stamps and helping to put them in the books.

Here's my story: In the 1960s it took 1,200 stamps to fill a book. You got 1 stamp per dime you spent, so to fill a book with 1,200 stamps you would have to spend $120. In the 1960s $120 was not chump change. I vaguely remember it took quite a few books to exchange them for merchandise. I also recall back about 1965 my church asked parishioners to donate S&H filled books to buy a new station wagon for the nuns who resided and taught at the school. I don't recall the model station wagon it was but they needed about 3,000 or 3,500 books to get that wagon. They were successful in people donating enough books to get the car. You could also redeem the books for cash. In the 1960s they paid $1.20 for a full book. As mentioned above, one would have to spend $120 to have the 1,200 stamps to fill the book. Therefore, the S&H program was equivalent to getting a 1% cash back on store purchases. Today, one can get 2% or 3% on purchases they make using credit cards. No mess of storing, pasting stamps in books, etc. In 1970, I worked at a grocery store (National Tea Co.) that gave out Green Stamps. I asked my boss at the time “How much does it cost the store to give them out?” and he replied “$62.50 for 25,000 stamps”. So, for every $2,500 customers spent, it cost the store $62.50, or, 1% of the sale price.

My father was a salesman for S&H. I I worked at the Elmira, NY redemption store while in high school in 1957.

I remember putting the stamps in books for my grandmother. 😊

Back in the 1970's I worked with a guy at Century Boat Company. Part of his job was signing for fuel oil shipments to the several buildings located in the Manistee, Michigan area. The fuel company would give S&H Green Stamps with each fuel oil delivery. The fuel oil deliveries were several thousand gallons each week. He was always getting stuff from S&H. Televisions, bicycles, furniture and all kinds of stuff. Pretty cool.

Yes! Thanks for this great exposition. I 💚 S&H Green Stamps. I even picked up a few completed books recently just for the memories. And yes, I still remember the taste of that glue!

Just happened upon your channel when searching about S&H green stamps... I noticed you don’t post very often... you should! Interesting videos on history!!! Please make more!

I definitely remember green stamps. In fact my mother worked for S&H in the 60's.

When I was a kid a grocery in western cincinnati called Albers would give them my mom would use them

Thank you for that video! Spot on my every memory and nice to understand why the decline.

I remember S&H Green Stamps. My parents used to get them at the A&P Supermarket on weekend shopping trips. I saved them in books, but I can't recall whether we redeemed them or not. Thanks for the memories. ☺️

That was fun stroll down memory lane. 😊

It was a fun time. We would take our books to the redemption center on San Fernando Rd. Glendale, California. As a kid, it was amazing.

I was 7 in 1969, and I remember going to an S&H redemption store with my mother...the shop had shelves with merchandise that seemed sparse compared to Kresge's (K-Mart) or Woolco's...but i think we had about five books, and my mother got an alarm clock and some dishes...I remember my grandmother saving Gold Bond stamps, nut I don't know if she ever got anything from them...I do remember that at Safeway, they had these disk shaped dispensers that the cashiers would take their finger and spin like a (vintage) telephone, and stamps would shoot out...

I still have some green stamp books. So glad I kept them.

I remember them in the 70s, but I don't remember my Mom ever going to a redemption center. Years ago I found a very small stash of the stamps, and thought they'd be an interest addition to my stamp collection. Then more recently I spent a lot of time at a friend's parents' house, and found their small stash of trading stamps. That included Top Value, Merchants, and Two Guys stamps. So now I have a pretty interesting, but small collection of them. No books or catalogs though.

I remember getting stamps when my mom went to grocery store, and even gas stations

I remember 2 things vividly from growing up in the 70’s. Licking countless S& H green stamps to fill books for a trip to the redemption store. And saving coins/loose change in my Tootsie Roll bank to put into paper rolls to take to the bank in exchange for cash. It taught an entire generation the value of saving for what you wanted.

This was great! I don't know what hit me about S&H Green Stamps...I was watching Nick Sabin give a leadership speech and I suppose at 65, I got a little nostalgic. Thanks again! PS: I did post this video on Twitter.

Really enjoyed this, thank you.

I do remember them..I couldn't remember what they were for so thank you!!

Great job. Loved it

Me who found your video because i found these 3 little stamps in an old cookbook that i bought myself for my birthday 😅

Omg green stamps were way before my time but I would be so into it. That is awesome

In the mid to late 1970s I remember my mom turning hers in for a brand new pocket electronic calculator. I cannot recall how much we spent on food to get the stamps to buy it but maybe $500? Some astronomical. Dad complained that she would have done better to buy the calculator outright.

My Mom would collect and save green stamps and redeem them for things we really needed. But my Grandma would save them, then give the books to me and my sister to buy toys with! :)

Yes I'm old enough to remember S&H Green Stamps. My mom collected Blue Chip Stamps though.

I worked at Wieboldt's for a couple of years when I was a teenager. Wieboldt's had a S&H redemption center on the second floor. There was a chain of hosiery stores called Neumode which issued their own stamps. It was a great feeling to turn in a card filled with stamps and get a free pair of hosiery.

I remember going to one of their centers to get a stroller for my little brother in the early 70’s.😊

I remember the Plaid Stamps too.

That is exactly what happened to them... Inflation...Higher prices of items in stores that passed them out... Opposition by politicians, fueled by the retail lobbies representing waves of discount stores and catalog houses that had to compete with trading stamp redemption centers... By the late 80s, they were gone...

Brilliant video. I was surfing for business ideas and i remembered the psychological pull of green stamps. The fact that your piece ends with its continuing existence to this day reflects the truth of how people value something for free. Thank you for this.

I have a genuine Dymo label maker and tape in the file cabinet sitting next to me I paid 1 book for. ( I actually got that with Blue Stamps but they went hand in hand. ) But when I pumped gas they were a PAIN IN THE ASS. We dispensed them from a machine mounted by the pumps where you turned a dial just like a phone for each dollar the customer paid for gas. They could be a source of contention at times. A wet sponge in a shallow dish worked great for pasting them.

When I was little the supermarkets that issued stamps were Thorofare [S&H Green], Kroger [Top Value], Giant Eagle [PS Blue] and A&P [Plaid]. A&P actually held out against stamps until 1962. This was in Pittsburgh. Interesting video you have there.

My parents met at Blue Chip where they both worked in the 60s

I remember playing with them as a kid in the clearly 80's

It was my job to paste them into the books. The blue chip store we used to shop at was on LaBrea it is now a habitat for humanity shop.

At any Supermarket. I remember 1967 and my first booklet filled up with stamps .It depended on how much money on food you spend . My booklet was full with green stamp and I gotten free Pricilla Curtains.... Sad, these stamps dinedt lasted into the 70s.

I'm sure our friendly IRS was happy with the S&H demise as the mountain of redemption that was virtually unreportable and some redemptions were quite large

Politicians argued that stamps manipulated the market…. While we are now stuck with nothing but Walmart now ……..Higher prices now without any stamps.

Thank you cool video

Loved it.

Food King near Los Angeles my uncle got them, we would Lick n Stick in the books. Then every so often go redeem them at a premium store.

My mom has these when she was a kid

What are s&h green stamps worth now

Yes I remember

"The feeling of the books when they all get stiff n hard"

I’m curious what that glue was made of

I still have some how much are they

PLEASE PLEASE offer closed captioning.

I still have 48 unredeemed books full of S&H stamps. I suppose they're rather worthless now.