Remember S & H Green Stamps? For those who weren't around at their height — during the 1960s, the company issued more stamps than the U.S. Postal Service and distributed 35 million catalogs a year — they were a loyalty rewards program. A grocery store or gas station, for example, bought them to give away to customers, who pasted them in books that could be redeemed for appliances and furniture. My friend & I both remembered our mothers collecting them but not redeeming them. There was a dedicated drawer in the kitchen for Green Stamps. I vaguely remember the store was on Minnesota Avenue so maybe my mom did turn them in. The program was founded in 1896 by Sperry & Hutchinson and petered out by the end of the 1980s, though it was sold/renamed & only entirely died as late as 2020.
Green Stamps!