plaid stamps

Anyone remember plaid stamps and green stamps? My tongue is still dry from licking and sticking them! We sat around the kitchen table after every trip to the store working on the coupon books.

I can't believe you wrote this: we recently went to Albertson's in Santa Fe, NM and they started using (some sort of) stamps where you win pots and pans with certain amounts. This was instead of the usually courtesy store card discount. The clerk was an older man so I said "Oh this reminds me of (The the H&H green, not plaid) stamps, when I was young"

he smiled and said Oh, no, this is totally different!!

So I said "it seems the same to me" (thinking he didn't remember or maybe as a guy it wasn't his thing)

So he says: "Oh no this is a modernidea.. They are preglued. You don't have to lick them!!!!!!"

I remember S&H green stamps. Being one of six kids, we used to fight over who got to lick them and paste them in the books. I also remember going over the catalogues with my sisters and decorating our 'fantasy' kitchens.

Seems so cheesy now....

I think I practically furnished my first kitchen with everything from S&H green stamps.
I was devastated when they stopped carrying them. I remember going into the stores after they said they were closing shop and seeing all the empty shelves. I am sure that was around 1986 or so....maybe 1987..

Were the plaid stamps "Top Value"? I remember that we got Top Value from one store and S&H from another. Lets see, we got a set of wooden handled steak knives, some really good scissors (Zwillinge, surprisingly), pots and pans, and a dessert dish set. My Mom who smoked Raleighs like a chimney for 40 years ( and lived to be 87) also got some more houseware items with Raleigh coupons. Then there was all the deluxe stuff we got from winning points from Skee Ball at Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati. For some reason, this stuff was treated with some reverence...not unlike the leg lamp ("That's a major award!") cherished by Gene Shepherd's old man in "A Christmas Story."

...and Orange stamps! ...and the awesome green stamp 10's? Only six to fill a whole page? Wheee!!!

Piggly wiggly has some type of promo and giving out "green stamps"... but good only for certain promo items, I think it was pots and pans or china or some sort...

Somehow, I don't think green stamps are going to be making a comeback.
All that slobbering over bits of paper, then mailing them in? I hope sanitary standards are a little higher these days.

We lived near two stores in NY, one that gave Green stamps, the other Plaid Stamps. I also remember helping put them in the books. We also lived near a "redemption center" which was basically a showroom where you could pick your prize. I remember my Mom taking us to see what we were saving up for. It was cheap entertainment!

When I was very young, the A&P gave Plaid Stamps and my Mom collected those. Almacs gave S&H Green stamps and most of our neighbors collected them. Plaid stamps went out of business (at least in our area) first, and I remember my Mom had to quickly decide on something from the catalog instead of getting what she'd been saving for.

I remember the redemption center. It was kind of like a catalog showroom store where you brought in your stamp books and they'd pull the merchandise out from the back. Seemed kind of like magic when we were little kids.

Anyone remember Raleigh coupons? My Grandma chain smoked Raleighs for the coupons right up until she died of lung cancer...what a great deal!

quote:

Originally posted by Niagara

Anyone remember Raleigh coupons? My Grandma chain smoked Raleighs for the coupons right up until she died of lung cancer...what a great deal!

Yes, Niagara (see my post above). My Mom collected them and kept them in bundles bound with rubber bands. Then she'd send 'em off in a large envelope and wait for her chosen item to arrive. My Mom quit smoking, after 40 years, at age 53. She lived to be 87. Lung cancer wasn't the cause of her death. With no history of heart disease (no history in our family), she had a series of heart attacks. They began a year after a doc put her on Vioxx. The smoking undoubtedly did her vascular system no good, but, except for a little arthritis in her shoulder, she'd had great check-ups until the heart attacks began.

quote:

Originally posted by Tony Bad

We lived near two stores in NY, one that gave Green stamps, the other Plaid Stamps. I also remember helping put them in the books. We also lived near a "redemption center" which was basically a showroom where you could pick your prize. I remember my Mom taking us to see what we were saving up for. It was cheap entertainment!

I remember them punching thru the books with some type of hole punch.
I used to love to go there with mom also..
Ah... memorieeeeess.... (again)
I find myself missing my mom very much lately from reading some of these posts.

quote:

Originally posted by Tony Bad

We lived near two stores in NY, one that gave Green stamps, the other Plaid Stamps. I also remember helping put them in the books. We also lived near a "redemption center" which was basically a showroom where you could pick your prize. I remember my Mom taking us to see what we were saving up for. It was cheap entertainment!

A redeption center sounds like a place you go to have your sins forgiven.

My wife, with the help and generosity of our mothers, saved enough green stamps so that in 1966 she marched into the redemption center in Kingston toting a large shopping bag full of stamp books and ordered a Westinghouse stand -up freezer. The machine is still purring away in our cellar keeping stuff frozen after all these years (dont ask how much electricity that old hog expends).

Cheers, John

quote:

Originally posted by Sandy Thruthegarden
A redeption center sounds like a place you go to have your sins forgiven.

The nuns told me I was going to hell pretty early on, so I don't think I would have been allowed in that kind of redemption center!

I remember the S & H green stamps because I was the paster in our family but I don't recall what we got when they were redeemed.

There were also savings bond stamps available at the post office. I think they were a quarter. When the book was filled, it could be turned in at the bank for a $25 U.S. savings bond.

Out in Calif we had S&H and blue chip stamps. I spent a lot of time licking stamps.

MikeS.

One of my weekend projects of my childhood was filling countless books with stamps !

Yep! I remember S&H Green Stamps well! We saved and pasted and saved. We looked at catalogues. I don't know what we ever got, but we sure did save S&H Green Stamps!

Mama and Daddy got a lot of things for our home with S&H Green Stamps...

quote:

Originally posted by callmebruce

Yep! I remember S&H Green Stamps well! We saved and pasted and saved. We looked at catalogues. I don't know what we ever got, but we sure did save S&H Green Stamps!

I liked those wish books better than the old Sears and Roebuck catalogues!
Bring back the stamps!

In 1961 or 62 our company built 32 Plaidland redemption centers
for the EF McDonald Co Plaid Stamp Company (of Dayton, Ohio) in
the tri-state area of NY/NJ/CT.

The A&P was handing stamps out hand over fist so our first center,
on Main St.,Huntington NY had to be open and doing business in 10
days from the day we got the contract. We worked day and night,
completed within time and budget and were awarded the entire 32
store contract.

I learned a lot about getting things done and how to work with big
and small town government and unions during that period. Amen !!!!!!!

In 1961 or 62 our company built 32 Plaidland redemption centers
for the EF McDonald Plaid Stamp Company (of Dayton, Ohio) in
the tri-state area of NY/NJ/CT.

The A&P was handing stamps out hand over fist so our first center,
on Main St.,Huntington NY had to be open and doing business in 10
days from the day we got the contract. We worked day and night,
completed within time and budget and were awarded the entire 32
store contract.

I learned a lot about getting things done and how to work with big
and small town government and unions during that period. Amen !!!!!!!

I still remember the way a page full of stuck-on stamps felt. Yes, my mom had those. Probably my grandmother, too. And oh, jeez, Niagara, Raleighs were the second brand I smoked (and I was just way, way too young) and, lifelong pack rat that I am, I collected the Raleigh coupons until I switched to menthol. I don't remember if I even sent for anything for those coupons. And no, I haven't smoked for years!

This is what the local Piggly Wiggly stores are doing....
http://www.greenbax.net/frameset.asp
Catalogue reminds me of the S&H..
I have one here, and you can get the Sony Cyber Shot Digital camera for 271.25 greenbax... (what the equivalent is, I have no clue),
Or if you wish, you can get a Black and Deck Wet/Dry Vac for 27, and a set of Calphalon cookwear for 86..
Too bad, there isnt a Piggly Wiggly close to me... I stop there sometimes on the way home from work...

I also remember gold square stamps. They had a little jingle that went,
A Gold Square Stamp Sticker Sure Gets Things Quicker."
We would wait until we had a big pile. Then my mother would get us a damp sponge and have us fill in the stamp books while we were thinking of what we should get when redeemed.
Can't imagine that going on today.