Anybody out there who still remembers the days of trading in stamps?

If you’re old enough to remember licking trading stamps for your mother, you likely grew up in the 1960s or earlier.

Somehow a conversation with a Gen Z coworker got off onto the topic of trading stamps. Talk about a quizzical look on someone’s face as I began to describe what I was talking about. My head might as well have been purple with horns in place of my ears.

So this column will be a walk down memory lane for those of you my age or older and for the two or three Gen Z newspaper readers out there this will be an education.

What trading stamps were was an early day loyalty program. Today we might get a card we swipe or an email or text telling you how many loyalty points you’ve earned. Back in the 1970s and earlier that program was administered through trading stamp companies that worked with retailers by supplying gum-backed stamps in varying denominations. The retailer then issued those trading stamps to customers based on the amount of each purchase.

You saved those stamps -- ours went in a top drawer in the kitchen -- until you had enough to fill out a book consisting of 24 pages at 50 points per page or 1,200 points per book. When you had accumulated enough stamps in these books you could trade them in for merchandise for goods like toys, housewares and even furniture. You did that by looking through the stamp catalog or by taking them to a local stamp store. For a time both Clovis and Portales had stamp stores.

The program began in 1891 at Schuster’s Department Store in Wisconsin. At first the plan was to give the stamps out just to customers paying with cash rather than purchasing on credit. Later as filling stations (there’s another concept Gen Zers don’t understand) began issuing stamps, that part of the program was dropped and they were given with every purchase.

In 1896 the Sperry and Hutchinson Company began printing and distributing S&H Green Stamps. By the early 1960s the company bragged that it printed more stamps than the U.S. Postal Service each year. Numerous other companies got into the act but their program often shortened to “Green Stamps” was the largest and most widespread. The programs I remember being used around these parts were S&H Green Stamps, Buccaneer and Gold Bond.

Besides having the gum adhesive on the back, the stamps were also perforated just like a postage stamp. That way you could tear off the exact amount to fill out your book. The catalogs or stores would display the merchandise you could trade the stamps for by displaying the number of books or points it cost. In the 1960s it was said that on average a book of trading stamps represented $125 in merchandise. That was a lot of groceries or gas in those days.

Each store could determine the rate they chose to honor their customers. For years most grocery stores followed the practice of double stamps on Wednesday. That led to Wednesday often being the biggest day of the week for grocers, even long after double stamp days ended.

Do you remember something you bought with stamps? If so, find someone younger than 30 and tell ‘em all about it today.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]