Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 17, 2022

S&H Green Stamps? Is that ancient EBT or something?

I remember S&H Green Stamps. There was another one my mother saved. Don’t remember the name.

Australian pluggers might feel an equivalent sensation if they come across a bunch of box flaps from Lipton tea.

Eh, me never heard of it.

I found my love in a grocery shop,/. Selling pickles and egg-plants and bottles of pop;/ She asked me to try her asparagus tips,/ And I fell for the smile on her ruby red lips.

Green stamps were all she gave,/ Green stamps were all I took,/ Green stamps were all I saved,/ So I pasted them all in my green stamp book./

I’d go every day just to gaze at her face,/ And in no time at all I had bought out the place./ Tho’ ne’er did I e’er taste her ruby red lips,/ I own four thousand cans of asparagus tips.Harvey Geller

Funny Green Stamps story: The airborne survey company I worked for used to fly old WWII Catalinas, which were designed to stay aloft for a loooonnng time. The aircrew told me they could buy a fridge or a TV with the Green Stamps for every fill-up. P.S. Happy St. Pat’s Day everyone.

Green Stamps for the Green Day ! Nice tie in :-) Happy St Pat’s Day to all !

S&H Green Stamps – For Life’s Extra Pleasures!

Their tag-line around, I think, 1980 or thereabouts…

For the kids who read this: S&H Green Stamps were given out much like today, you get points on your card from the coffee place, grocery store, gas card, etc. Except you could use the stamps to fill books and get merchandise from their catalog.

Their big rival was Plaid Stamps.

And like no-expiration-date coupons you find in the kitchen drawer, the product is no longer available.

I remember sitting around the kitchen table in the evening some weekend with my parents and older sister putting the stamps in the books. We kids and mom would lick them but my dad cheated and used a sponge.

Canadian Tire dollars up here.

Interesting that I knew them at the same time I was licking and sticking savings bond stamps every week at school. Both provided tangible evidence of reaching a goal. And realizing the striving involved.

My mother used to collect these when I was a child!

PRE-NFT

My mother saved S&H green stamps. She used them to get me a Lionel train set. I still have it!

Oh my goodness, YES!!

I got an 8mm movie camera.

Obviously not a full book. :)

Mom got a toaster oven that lasted for years, using S&H Green Stamps. In chrome and Harvest Gold, of course. Mom’s kitchen was a study in Harvest Gold.

If I remember correctly you got one stamp for every 10 cents purchase and they had larger $1 stamps.

Got a card table and four chairs with Green Stamps. I think there was a competitor—brown colored stamps maybe.

I “took care” of a friend and wife’s house while they were off to Texas and a 10-month tech school in ’69. When they came back, they found four full books of S&H Green Stamps on their kitchen table.

Occasionally seemed silly, but could be fun. Like being a kid saving box tops. Occasionally got something fun or useful for years. Before it folded I got an outdoor tv antenna, by then unavailable at aNy store. All the best old tv shows were available only over antenna, not cable or satellite.

S &H used to have an office building along I-290 in the Chicago suburbs. I was born in 1954 and I think I found out S & H stood for Sperry and Hutchinson in the early 1970s.

I got Plaid Stamps.

My mom got an 8 place setting china set. We still have it.

I found a book of World War II ration, I guess you call them coupons, in stuff my grand parents left my Mom.

Probably not a book but… hey, wait, cleaning out THAT kitchen drawer?

Sounds more like a Plugger’s Plugger.