Double Stamp Day
My grandmother, “Mom”, saved trading stamps. Grocery stores and other vendors like gas stations gave out stamps of one brand or another. Top Value, Big Bonus, and Green Stamps were the main ones around us but Mom didn't trade at the stores, like Lewis and Coker, that gave out Green Stamps so she didn't have many of them.
Mom got the stamps and placed them in a stack on the dining table where she kept the paper booklets in which the stamps were placed. Saturday nights she got a wet sponge and arranged all the stamps from the week and wet the glue side and put them in the books. They were in different denominations based on the amount of money you spent. You fit the right denomination in the right spot in the book and filled the books a little at a time.
She put all the filled books in a drawer and saved them for Christmas.
There were stamp redemption centers in our neighborhood, one for Top Value across from the Henke's and a Big Bonus on the corner of 11th and Yale. We'd go there to explore and see what was in stock and pick up a current catalog.
I spent hours looking through the catalogs, as if they were sacred scripture, building an imaginary home and furnishing it with all good things, things that were clean and new and worked and lasted and made life better.
Most of what was at the redemption centers were not standard brand made, but they were new. The toys were what we'd call generic today, they weren't Mattel or Hasbro, they were something else. But they were new and all the parts were there.
The grocery stores put out coupons for extra stamps if you bought specific things. They all had Double-stamp days where you got twice as many for the same purchase amount of groceries as you did other days. Pretty sure it was Tuesdays.
The redemption stores for both Top Value and Big Bonus were near our house, on the same street, just a few blocks apart. We didn’t go there often, but it was always a treat for me as I got to see first-hand in the show-room examples of the items I’d seen only in the catalogs. Toys were important, for sure, but I shopped for everything they carried. Everything was new and shiny and complete.
The catalogs were my interim treat. They came in the mail and had a special smell and the pages were in color and easy to turn. I waited until I knew I had an extended period of time to carefully and thoroughly turn every page, and make my decisions.
Every room of an early 1960s household could be furnished with enough books. Even cars could be traded for enough books, somewhere around 800 as I recall. I’m not sure but I think one got one stamp for every 10 cents of purchase. So if 1500 stamps were needed to fill a book, it would mean spending $150. That was an outrageous amount to spend in a grocery store in the 1960s so double-stamp day and coupons for extra stamps made all the difference.
We never had enough books for a car.
There were always enough for Christmas.