Day 44 #100DaysOfOldDays

I have so many customer loyalty cards, that I can’t fit them all into my purse. It’s the only thing in my purse actually; plastic cards.

Nearly every shop I go to these days asks for my loyalty card; chemists, supermarkets, coffee shops, the garden centre, the spa, sports shops, even the car wash has them.

Back in the day……we had Green Shield stamps!

Everyone everywhere saved Green Shield stamps. Certain shops and petrol stations signed up with the scheme. For every 2p spent—or maybe 2½p, shoppers got a stamp. They stuck them into a saver booklet and when it was full they went to their Green Shield catalogue to choose a gift. The more stamps they had, the more expensive gift they could choose. Or closer to the truth…the more full books they had. For example; a cassette rack that holds up to 12 cassettes, required 1½ books, but the cassette player/recorder required 25 full books.

I remember us as children, looking through the catalogue and picking out what we wanted. But it took so long to fill a book, our wish list stayed just that—a wish list!

The scheme started in England in 1958 by a man called Richard Tompkins, who had taken note of the success of a similar scheme in America.

The Irish distribution centre was in Clondalkin, Co Dublin; a building 640,000 cu. ft. in size. The gifts were transported from here to several smaller gift houses across the country. Those who couldn’t travel to collect, could get their gift delivered by post.

When Tesco in England stopped being part of the promotion, Green Shield started accepting cash along with the stamps to buy the gifts. Eventually they were accepting cash only and the catalogue was re-branded as Argos. They stopped selling the stamps in 1991 and in 2020 the company liquidated.

Brand New Retro has a more detailed article about Green Shield with photos of the stamps and the gifts in the catalogue. Have a look!