March 10, 2026- Andy is in OurLittleCorner today
When America Was Green – A Bit of Nostalgia
I mentioned in an earlier blog that my mom in her later years put together a journal of short vignettes about her life. I’d like to share some thoughts on one of her entries for today’s OurLittleCorner. She titled it “Remember Green Stamps? ” and it begins with this:
Green stamps were a very important part of our lives. It was in the 50’s, if I remember right. You got green stamps with things you bought at department stores, even some gas stations gave them. You had a book to paste them in, and all kinds of good things to cash them in for.
I do recall those Green Stamps. One of my family chores was to help paste the S&H Green Stamps into the “Collectors Books” (as they were called) and because there were no peel-and-stick stamps back then a lot of licking was required — I can still taste the glue from those stamps. But until I read my mom’s journal I hadn’t realized how many “good things” our family scored with those Green Stamps. Our family’s first visit to Disneyland was courtesy of Green Stamps (I still feel the thrill when that hippopotamus almost overturned our boat on the “Jungle Cruise” ride). On a more mundane level my mom mentioned that Green Stamps earned us such “good things” as a bookcase, a maple lamp stand, a brass lamp, sheet sets, pillows, and Christmas gifts.
We weren’t the only family collecting Green Stamps . According to mygreenstamps.com, by the 1960s a whopping 80 percent (30 to 35 million) of American households collected Green Stamps. At one point S&H issued three times more Green Stamps than the number of stamps sold by the U.S. Postal Service. And remarkably, the Green Stamp reward catalog (which contained up to 178 pages) was the largest publication in the country. You could say that America was green.
You also could say that the Sperry and Hutchinson Company (aka S&H) was green (with dollars that is). With an annual revenue of $1 billion, their business model was to sell the stamps to retailers (about 85,000 businesses) which passed on the cost of the stamps with higher prices. Because of the considerable lag time between when customers got the stamps and when they were redeemed, S&H had a substantial “upfront” revenue flow.The fact that many of the stamps were never redeemed didn’t hurt their bottom line.
I was somewhat surprised at how the topic of Green Stamps can spark such a strong nostalgic response from many folks (at least from those who can recall the 1950s and ’60s). An online search for Green Stamps yields scads of sites harking back to what is described as a kinder, gentler time. At a recent coffee stop on a club bike ride I asked a group of fellow cyclists what they recalled about Green Stamps — the mood around the table seemed to brighten up with shared stories (which says something about what an ancient group of cyclist we are).
But why would these green-colored stamps with bad tasting glue be remembered so fondly? It certainly wasn’t because the stamps were such a terrific economic windfall, especially given that the redemption value of the stamps was offset by the costs merchants built into their prices. Some argue that it has something to do with the psychological and social value of the stamps. For example, numerous sites claimed that collecting the stamps was often a household activity that fostered family unity. Also often mentioned was the excitement of visiting a redemption center to get some of those “good things” featured in the Green Stamp reward catalogs.
Despite the many heartfelt testimonials, to my knowledge no serious empirical research has examined why Green Stamps generate so much nostalgia. Considering that the 1950s and ’60s was a period of considerable turmoil (think MacArthyism, race riots, Vietnam, cold war fears, and so on), the Green Stamp era may not have been quite as gentle and kind as often depicted.
However, there has been some serious research dealing with the effects of nostalgia itself. In 2017 the prestigious journal Nature published the results of studies that found that “recalling happy memories” (i.e., nostalgia) helps us cope with stress by dampening the “hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis stress response.” Although I have no idea of what that means, I do know that in today’s stress-filled world we all could use a little mental relief. So even though Green Stamps are no longer around to be redeemed for tickets to Disneyland, just recalling happy memories about those stamps is redeemable in the form of a little reduction in our stress levels. And it requires no licking.
Love it and I totally remember collecting not only S&H Green Stamps but also blue chippers!
Ramona. Thanks for the memories!
I hope the memories reduced some of your daily stress. My sister’s husband managed a Blue Stamp redemption outlet in El Centro back in the ’60s. It certainly wasn’t at the level of Green Stamp centers though.
I remember well the “chore” of pasting Green Stamps into the little book, in Oregon, during the 50s. For the life of me, though, I can’t remember how we redeemed them. We lived in Nyssa and later Ontario, Oregon, neither a real metropolis. I wish I’d thought to ask my mother about that when I had the chance!
Thanks for the note. If it weren’t for my mom’s journal I wouldn’t have any idea of how our stamp books were redeemed. I don’t even recall ever visiting one of those redemption centers.
My dad was an insurance agent back in the day. Some of the auto body shops in town gave green stamps. But when my dad’s insurance company paid the bill, the owner of the car didn’t get the stamps, my dad did. Whole big books of them. But in order to redeem them, they had to be pasted into the little books. We had sense enough to use a sponge to ‘lick’ them, but it was still a huge chore and the whole family worked at it. Oddly, I cannot remember a single item that we ever bought with green stamps. For all I know, we never bought anything EXCEPT with green stamps.
Thanks for the comment. I knew that gas stations gave Green Stamps but would not have guessed that body shops did. That was quite a perk for your dad.I wonder if he had to claim the value of the
Green Stamps as taxable income. Also, by using a sponge instead licking the stamps you missed out on the most memorable part of Green Stamping — the flavor.