Remembering Green Stamps

Recently on my friend Gena's blog, www.thehouseonlavenderhill.blogspot.com , she was blogging about our tv houses. There were plenty of votes, but was it really surprising that so many of us picked the Brady Bunch House?

One of my favorite episodes was "54 40 or Fight." The time was the late 1960's, early 1970's and the Bradys are sad to find out that their trading stamp redemption center is about to close. The girls have been saving the stamps, but the boys didn't know. And of course, the boys have been saving the stamps, but the girls didn't know. Now with the redemption center closing, the Brady's need to redeem the those stamps, pronto!

The boys want a rowboat, the girls want a sewing machine. Neither group has enough stamps on their own to get what they really want, and neither side wants to compromise. The answer to this dilemna, build a card house. Who ever knocks the house down loses the stamps.

Thanks to Tiger the dog, the girls won and head to the redemption center for their new sewing machine, but come home with a portable color tv that they can all enjoy.

Ahhh!!!

As I've said many times, I really miss the customer loyalty programs like S and H Green Stamps and Plaid Stamps.

I remember going grocery shopping with my parents and them being handed a few pages of stamps after paying for their groceries. To my eyes, it looked like a bonanza and that we could get whatever we wanted from the premium catalog right away.

My mother took it in stride, and when we got home, she would put the stamps into the bread drawer that every 1960's kitchen used to have.

Every so often, Mom would take a night after us kids were in bed, and sit at the kitchen table with her sponge top water bottle and put stamps into the books. Once, around Christmas, when our family had grown to seven, Mom even allowed me to put the precious stamps into the stamp book. What a show of confidence!!! I was nervous doing it, wondering if I really was capable, but still so proud.

And the premiums were top of the line! Mom used the stamps to buy my first, and only, doll house and I suspect many other Christmas gifts. I know that appliances like electric hair curlers, dryers and toasters were all offered, as well as pretty dishes and serving pieces.

Today I found out that S and H Greenstamps have grown along with the times. They are available for online shopping and called Green Points now. I had trouble with the site, but if you purchase over the web often, it might be worth checking out.