Algoma

and
Gold Bond 

Stamps

                                       


Cash back credit cards. Frequent flyer miles. Kohl’s Cash. They're market rewards for brand loyalty. But, how many have heard heard of Gold Bond Stamps or S & H Green Stamps? Grandma prized those good-as-gold little strips of adhesive paper and knew just what she would do when she had her book pasted full.

Gold Bond’s 3 ½ x 5 ½ books had 60 pages, each page having enough space for 30 single stamps or 3 Golden 10 stamps. When the book was filled with the stamps, Grandma collected $3 cash or could use the stamps for purchasing. At introduction in 1938, three bucks was serious money. It was still money in 1960. There are stories of folks who saved enough stamps –with the help of others – to buy a refrigerator.

History tells us such stamps got their start in 1891 at Milwaukee’s Schuster’s Department Store when the earning power of stamps was the reward for not buying on credit. There were no credit cards in those days but merchants kept careful records of what was owed. It was not always “Cash and Carry.” Discouraging credit then was no different than receiving a discount of 4 cents per gallon of gas paid in cash today.

Algoma businessmen introduced the stamps in the April 16, 1948 Record Herald. Merchants banded together to run a full page spread offering the cash dividend stamps as a special discount when purchases were paid in cash, or if accounts were entirely paid off. Stamps were given for any purchase of 10 cents or more and, sweetening the introduction was the 25 free stamps to jump start customers into the program. The stamps said, “Thank you for your patronage.” Not taking advantage of the program was almost like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Ed Blahnik, whose market,was on  Steele Street two doors west of Hotel Stebbins, was one who offered extra stamps as an inducement to buy sale items that were paid in full. S & H Green Stamps came along in 1896, after Schuster’s started the ball rolling. Blue Chip Stamps, Top Value Stamps, Plaid Stamps and others competed, but all rewarded customer loyalty. Gold Bond Stamps appeared first but it was the Green Stamps that beat Gold Bond to Algoma.

On Halloween 1931, the paper carried an ad introducing the Green Stamps. The ad indicated that Green Stamps were a way of letting one’s money work for oneself so one could “Save as you spend – by saving.” It was touted as a “generous discount gladly given” for patronage. A book of the green stamps brought $2.00. The ad went on to say that the green stamps were a real economy and one could think of the stamps as one did the change for a purchase.

Wikipedia says that by 1957, there were about 200 trading stamp companies operating in the U.S. The site further says such stamps grew in the early 1900s with the growth of gas stations. Grocers and other merchandisers followed suit. Trading stamps began fading in the 1970s when credit card and other reward programs came into being. Wikipedia also says that in 2008 the last trading stamp company, Eagle Stamps, went out of business.

How long the stamps continued in Algoma is anyone’s guess. It was estimated in 1947 that 2/3 of American households collected the trading stamps. No doubt Algoma did too.



Sources: Algoma Record Herald; Co, Commercial History of Algoma, Wisconsin, Vol. 1, c. 2006; Wikipedia.

Ad photos from Algoma Record Herald; Gold Bond Stamp book is the blogger's.