POD 8/2/12 S&H Green Stamps catalog with WH appliances

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I don't remember that Scruggs (Vandervoort-Barney) gave stamps, but they switched in about 1970 at Crestwood to Famous-Barr, so I have only a slight recollection of that store. Like was said upthread, you can still redeem the S&H stamps...no particular reason to keep them.
 
I remember a stamp dispenser over the register that was sort of vertical and was marked in columns of dollars and cents with these little curved tabs that the cashier would put a finger tip in and pull down. A corresponding strip of stamps would emerge from the bottom. Speaking of old registers, I still remember that big thing on the right side of the keyboard that the cashier hit with the heel of his or her hand each time an item was "rung up." All of that mechanical action is so primitive now, but was such a marvel of movement with the little cards with the price jumping up in the window above the keys. Imagine the tolerances & lubrication involved to keep all of that from jamming. Even when I was using a register in the 70s, there was a hole on the side with a round pivoting cover where we could insert a hand crank if we lost power or something. The charge card had no magnetic strip, but was placed in a reader on the front of the machine and at the termination of the sale, the carriage moved in for the register to print the charge card numbers on the reel of paper that recorded the transactions. That was a different reel of paper than the one that printed receipts. Of course for charge sales, we had to put the charge card in the stamper and place a charge ticket over it and then imprint the card number and customer's name on the three part form. Ancient times for sure.
 
green and yellow

I recall my mom saving S&H green stamps and Top Value yellow stamps. We got the green ones at the gas station and the yellow ones at Kroger's market. She would let us kids lick them and paste them in the books. The yellow ones came in singles, fives and 25's, so you could paste one 25 in the corner of the page instead of licking all those singles. I loved looking through the catalogs.
 
I guess this is not supposed to be for private chats,

but back to Ralph...there was a Blue Chip stamp redemption center in the shopping center on Bascom Ave. (West Side) near the high school I went to, Del Mar. It was called "Dick's Center" since it was home to the big Dick's Supermarket (no laughing please) and later Dick's Dragon Restaurant. You might remember the scandal when it was discovered the market kept a broom or two at the registers and would ring them up along with the customer's groceries (no scanning back then) until they finally got busted. If a customer caught the error on their receipt the store just said "hey, s'not our fault."

remember...no laughing

twintubdexter++8-3-2012-20-24-28.jpg
 
Dick's Center is alive but not exactly well.  That would include the signage.  The local grocery chain disappeared long ago, but the center remains.  The only reason we go there is for "Tacos Mexico,"  a tiny taqueria that serves up some of the simplest and best tacos around.

 

I vaguely remember a Blue Chip redemption center there.  It might be a redemption center of a different sort now -- an unmarked place called "Saturday Night Live" frequented by unfortunates dealing with their addictions.

 

Joe, I'll write you separately to inquire if you know what Del Mar's site used to be, and what's under the sunken football field.
 
Over in the Super forum I mentioned Raleigh cigarette coupons.  Did anyone here have family members that saved them?  My mother-in-law redeemed hers for a folding card table w/ 4 matching chairs, and an avocado GE electric skillet w/ tilt leg, and the legs were also removable for easier cleaning or loading into a dishwasher.
 
I remember tv ads for Raleigh, touting the coupons. My parents did not smoke and thus were not involved in coupon redemption.

In our area (San Diego) most gas stations gave S&H Green Stamps. Of the local market chains, two (Alpha Beta and DeFalco's, the latter acquired by VONS in c. 1971) gave Blue Chip stamps and one (Safeway) gave S&H. Safeway had the best meat, but lousy produce, so mom tended to favor DeFalcos, with Alpha Beta as a back up. She ended up buying meat from a local meat market which was superior to any of the supermarkets.

As a result, we had tons of Blue Chip stamps, and a smaller influx of S&H (mainly from gas purchases). We used a dampened sponge as well. Normally you got one stamp per 10 cents of purchase, but both S&H and Blue Chip thankfully gave 10-stamp coupons for a dollar purchase. 50 stamps or five 10-stamp coupons filled one page in Blue Chip books. S&H books had squares to affix a 50-stamp coupon ($5 purchase) but I never saw a 50-stamp coupon issued by the stores we patronized; we received single stamps or 10-stamp coupons. I do remember the stamp dispensers at checkout operated by the checker.

We kept the stamps in a kitchen "junk drawer" in manila envelopes: one envelope for Blue Chips, one for S&H, and one for unused Disneyland ride coupons, which never expired. Filled books were placed in a built in kitchen bookcase (which help mostly cookbooks) until it was time to go to a redemption store.

The redemption I remember the most was the ping pong table, something we normally would not have money for. It either came with a cover or else we got a cover with extra stamp books. It folded for storage and had wheels on the bottom. We stored it in a covered breezeway with the cover on it. However, I don't think the materials were the best, I think it was made of compressed wood chips, and after several winters (despite being stored in a covered location with a plastic cover on it) it began to warp. However, it was a luxury we enjoyed courtesy of Blue Chip stamps, an extra that I doubt my parents would ever have considered purchasing.
 
Tim, thanks for reminding me.  Mom got a card table and matching chairs with Blue Chip stamps.  Actually one chair didn't match, but it was close enough.  I think the table is still kicking around somewhere but the chairs are long gone.  They were the type where the legs folded inward and the seat flopped down over them for storage.
 
I remember my mother redeeming S&H Green Stamps. She redeemed her for Cannon sheet sets. That's all she ever got with her Green Stamps. I remember going with her to the redemption center and looking at all the neat stuff while she completed her transaction. The facility was small and the merchandise was neatly displayed like a retail store. So different from the box warehouses now. The old S&H Green Stamps location is now our hospice thrift store and it does the business which is great because our local hospice has helped so many people.
 
Norgeway,

My mother had a couple of pieces. One in harvest gold and one in a sort of red color and I can't remember what the name of that color was. When I was a kid in the 1960's, our neighbor had the complete set in turquois. She has a big 40 inch electric stove and when not in use, she displayed the pots on top of the stove. It was like The Lucy Show where Lucy had crammed on her stove just about every piece of Farberware stainless cookware. I thought it was aluminum for the longest time, but then decided the Lucy Show crew must have given it a satin finish so it would not reflect images and glare. Near the end of life of our local S&H store we would get catalogs form them. I remember seeing a Moped offered and I couldn't comprehend the number of books needed to acquire it. I often wondered who would be the customer that would have enough stamps for big items like that. I guess it would be if you got stamps at sll the places you did business like grocery store, gas station, etc. I remember one bank in town offering S&H stamps if you opened an account or bought a CD. Wow. How times have changed!!
 
Lucy Show Satin Finish

That satin finish on Lucy's Farberware probably wasn't permanent.

In the old days of movies and TV, light reflections from shiny objects could cause glare. Prop people solved the problem by spraying such objects with a liquefied wax, or by rubbing them with bar soap and buffing a little bit with a cloth. Both methods created a matte finish that wouldn't cause glare.

In the early days of TV, the glare problem was so bad that even an actress's jewelry had to be treated. And in the days when movies were largely shot on soundstages, entire cars had to be done so that the overhead lighting wouldn't reflect in their paint jobs.
 
Glare in older TV shows

The problem two fold-The large amount of lighting required for early TV camera pickup tubes to work properly-they weren't as sensitive as later devices.and the tubes had the Glare-or "Comet tailing" from moving bright objects.And actors had to be wiped frequently of sweat from the heat of the lights.In between takes the wax glare reduction had to be reapplied-the heat from lighting would melt it off.Some of those lights had 10Kw bulbs!and the early dimmers had thyratron tubes,autotransformers-or worse-large resistence dimmers-MORE heat added!Air conditioning bills were high then,too!
 

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