If you've ever riffled through your grandparents' junk drawers looking for scissors or tape, you might've found errant S&H green stamps that've probably been there since the 70s. These stamps weren't meant for your mail; rather, they were better than any rewards program we have today. Launched in 1896, Sperry & Hutchinson's green stamp program is still around. Discover the story behind your grandparents' favorite rewards system and why you shouldn't ever throw away these vintage green stamps when you find them.
What Are Sperry & Hutchinson's Green Stamps?
If you've never time traveled or had a passion for coupon history, chances are you've never even heard of Sperry & Hutchinson, let alone seen their infamous green stamps in person. Sperry & Hutchinson was a unique late-19th century business that sold green stamps to retailers who gave them to their customers as rewards for spending money. Much like raffle tickets or rewards points, people could use their green stamps to get cool products from the S&H Catalog and redemption centers around the country.
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Green stamps were so popular that musicians and screenwriters paid homage to them in many songs throughout the 1970s. Famed folk group, the Kingston Trio sings "lickin' them green stamps, lickin' them blue," in their 1964 song Them Poems.
By the 1960s, these stamps were insanely popular. According to S&H's website, it's "estimated that 80 percent of American households collected Green Stamps during their heyday." Because of how ridiculously popular they were, there are tons of these unused books around middle America just waiting to be sold to collectors or redeemed through their website.
Green stamp booklets came with a variety of covers, but each one had the iconic S&H red and white logo on the front. The pages were full of spit-activated adhesive, so when you got new stamps, you'd lick the back and stick it into the pages of your gift saver book. The stamps themselves had the same logo and were printed on iconic mint green paper.
Are S&H Green Stamps Worth Collecting?
S&H green stamps are so representative of the 1960s and 1970s that if you're infatuated with that period, it'd make for a cool and unusual collectible. They also sell pretty quickly online, especially if you price them fairly. You don't often find people selling just a few stamps here and there. Rather, they do best when they're combined into a lot of a few booklets or sets of stamps.
For example, this lot of 33 quick saver books with some stamps sold for $35.99 on eBay. A separate lot of 44 quick saver books only sold for $20. So, if you want to make a pretty quick (albeit small) buck, you can list your grandparents' or great-grandparents' old green stamps online. Expect to sell them for about $15-$30, depending on how many you have.
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Why Keep S&H Green Stamps if They're Not That Valuable?
Today, the S&H Company has completely digitized their entire redemption catalog. You can redeem green points through their ideabook system online. Yet, that leaves the millions of unused stamps in limbo. For a time, there was a third party company that brokered stamps-for-cash transactions but it shut down in 2001.
However, there's hope on the horizon. On their website, S&H states that they have future plans for how people are going to be able to redeem their old stamps and to hold onto them, and you can sign up for an account on their website to get any updates on the matter.
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Rewards Programs Were Cooler Back in the Day
Sperry and Hutchinson perfected the rewards game back in the 1960s and 1970s. Their green stamps marketing system was unparalleled, and the little books you find today are testaments to their massive success. Best part is you can always make some fast cash on your family's old booklets, or you can let them marinate a little while longer and see what S&H has in store for them.
The S&H Greenpoints program was discontinued as of October 4, 2020 and it was announced that all legacy S&H Green Stamps no longer had value and could no longer be redeemed, while S&H Greenpoints totals would be transferred to a new program called Freshpoints.
The company all but disappeared until 1999 when the company was reintroduced as S&H greenpoints. The S&H greenpoint company was eventually sold and once again, they went away but not before over 8 million passionate S&H Green Stampers enrolled in the program.
S&H Green Stamps do have some value as collectibles, but you can't redeem them for goods anymore. If you're interested in buying or selling vintage stamps, you can find them on websites like eBay.
They were given out in denominations of one, ten, and fifty points. Simply stick the stamps into the free 24-page booklets that were offered by retailers and once you filled up all the pages, you had 1,200 points. You could then use those points to select items from the S&H catalog.
But it suffered when Tesco ceased to use it, as part of a price-cutting policy that became standard nationwide. To retain business, Green Shield allowed customers to buy gifts from the catalogue with a mix of stamps and cash, but soon the catalogue became cash-only, and the operation was re-branded as Argos.
S&H Green Stamps were the first trading stamps popular across the U.S. and Europe, although the company did have competitors. “S&H” stands for the Sperry & Hutchinson Co., which was founded by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchison in 1896, according to Greg Hatala in a 2013 article on NJ.com.
S&H Green Stamps were. trading stamps that were popular in the United States from the late 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed, you talk about Sperry & Hutchinson...they were founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Bryan Hutchinson.
Can you exchange old stamps for new stamps? Yes, you can exchange old stamps for new stamps. Just as a reminder though, old, non-barcoded stamp will be no longer valid after July 31st 2023, so you must get them swapped for new, barcoded ones before the deadline.
He came up with the idea that his Green Shield shops should start to accept cash alongside stamps. Soon the catalogue shops became cash only and were rebranded as Argos from 1973. Although Green Shield stamps are not in use today, did you enjoy collecting them and sticking them into their book?
S&H Green Stamps had several competitors, including Greenbax Stamps offered by Piggly Wiggly, Gold Bell Gift Stamps (in the Midwest), Triple S Stamps (offered by Grand Union Supermarkets), Gold Bond Stamps, Blue Chip Stamps, Plaid Stamps (a project of A&P Supermarkets), Top Value Stamps, King Korn Stamps, Quality ...
Redemption. The Blue Chip Stamp Company still exists (as of February, 2024) and is located in Pasadena, California. They can be redeemed at the value of $1.80 per full book.
"It is estimated that 80 percent of American households collected Green Stamps during their heyday," Hatala wrote. The recessions of the 1970s impacted Green Stamps and their popularity slowly declined. Sperry and Hutchison no longer has redemption centers but the company does offer online redemptions.
As the name suggests, Forever Stamps can be used to mail a one-ounce letter regardless of when the stamps are purchased or used and no matter how prices may change in the future. Forever Stamps are always sold at the same price as a regular First-Class Mail stamp.
An I-551 stamp is a temporary evidence stamp that proves the permanent residency status of foreign nationals. When nonimmigrants are authorized to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis, they must have a valid Green Card at all times.
In the late 1970s, Tesco stopped giving Green Shield stamps. After that Green Shield allowed people to buy gifts from the catalogue with cash and rebranded as Argos, which is still found on today's High Street.
With the loss of Tesco as a client, Tompkins was free to convert the entire Green Shield Stamps business to Argos and cash purchases. Argos was acquired in 1979 by the sprawling conglomerate BAT Industries, now just British American Tobacco, and soon afterwards stopped issuing stamps entirely.
Introduction: My name is Edwin Metz, I am a fair, energetic, helpful, brave, outstanding, nice, helpful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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