While I don't specifically collect trading stamps per se, I do have a few in my accumulation.  Two of these you may not be aware of.  One of them, however, is temporarily mis-placed.  But in the meantime, here's one that is handy...

 

 

As a kid, I helped my mother on many occasions to fill up the redemption books for both S&H Green Stamps and Blue Chip Stamps.  Later, there was also the Gold Bond stamps.  But I believe that my favorites were the Blue Chip Stamps.  If for no other reason than the fact that they were produced in blue - a favorite color of mine.

 

The Value Stamps shown above, were a marketing tool that we used for our own purposes to reward customers on both our web site and, for a couple of years, through our retail store front.  The examples shown above were from a production run in 2006.  The last year that we produced the stamps and the redemption program was discontinued in mid-to-late 2007. 

 

I probably should have kept better notes during that time when the program was operational, as I do not recall at the moment just how many sheets of these stamps were produced and distributed.  But taking an educated guess, I would say that we produced about 500 or so sheets, each sheet bearing 50 stamps.  All sheets were printed as shown, in black and purple on blue, 8.5" x 11" dry-gummed paper and pinhole perforated.

 

And as you might imagine, I have no clue as to how many of these Value Stamps may still be "in captivity" by those persons that received the stamps from our companies.

 

I do know, however, that I had two or four single stamps left that I saved for posterity sake, to go into some stamp albums I put together as gifts to my four grandsons.  But that was the extent of known examples until late last year when a long-time customer mentioned that she still had some and wanted to know if we would still honor them, even though the redemption program had terminated years earlier.  Graciously, we redeemed the stamps for her, making 35 stamps the total that I now have at hand.  Although if I were to go back through the archives of accounting paperwork from that time period that are now stored in boxes, there probably are more to be found therein.  (I don't believe that going on a search for them would justify the time, but I could be wrong.)

 

As for the other trading stamps that I referred to at the onset of this missive, I will look through the files and try, at least, to get a scan of them for posting here.  These are known as SAVER STAMPS utilized the the American Bicycle Association and are still in use today.  We (The Olathe Poste) have been the producer of ABA's saver stamps for about the past five years.  And off-hand, they distribute several thousand sheets annually among their member race tracks, etc., across the United States.

 

I hope this is useful information for you, Art, and thanks for bringing up this topic.  It brought back a few good, old memories.

 

 

Thanks for posting, you are very welcome here.  I am sure someone can help with your enquiries and I look forward to seeing the results here.

 

We have similar 'Co-operative' stamps in the UK - discount or trading stamps issued by a national department store chain.

 

 

Personally, I consider trading stamps a separate category of and by itself.  Then the many, appropriate sub-categories for other types of trading stamps, such as what Colin refers to, can be differentiated properly.  I am guessing that Art, in his book, probably addresses the many types and differences that this historic topical arena of stamp collecting worldwide represents.  But as I've never seen his book nor heard more from him here about it, again, it's only a guess.

 

From the perspective of your offering these types of stamps on Ebay, I don't know either whether or not they offer a "trading stamp" category.  So you may well have to use the category Cinderella to improve your odds to their best potential of viewers and possible buyers.  But if you find yourself interested enough in the trading stamp topic to not sell-off everything currently in your possession, and start a collection of them of your own. Then you may want to investigate how Scotts, Gibbons, or any of the other collecting "Bibles" treat them and go from there.  I would imagine too, that special interest reference books such as Art's, would also be an invaluable tool for anyone who takes up this area of collecting.

 

For what it's worth, Ande, I hope these comments are helpful to you in some way.  And welcome to the forum, too. 

 

 

 

I have now started a separate forum heading for any other trading, discount, savings or merchants stamps and will move this thread into that later in the month.

 

I did not think eBay has a category for 'trading stamps' - I have certainly never searched for that so would advise Ande to put as many appropriate phrases as possible in his item descriptions and let his potential buyers decide what the stamp represents to them.

     On eBay any search for "trading stamps" or "@1 trading stamp*" will also pull up the kitchen boxes to hold books and loose stamps and postage stamp assortments for traders.  But that is better than looking through all the listing under collectables.

Art

 

 

 

And Welcome to the forum Paula!   

I have a Peoples's Trading Company but it is not from Birmingham. I has an arm and hammer in a circle in the center. Can you post a description of the stamp?

Art

 

 

 

 

How long were they in business for?

Not sure what they are - any ideas?

I was living in the UK until 1994 but only remember 'Green Shield' stamps..........the ones pictured above were found in a New Zealand bulk lot so wondering if they may be from Australia/NZ ???

The probability, since it came from a NZ bulk lot, is that it was used in New Zealand by a food market (store) as a promotion. Without a copy of the collecting sheet, booklet or the store's ad I can not guess if it was for cookware or something else.

I will include it in the revised Trading Stamp  catalogue under Designs (market basket), Plan (unknown) and Country (New Zealand).

I still hope to get the updated catalogue done before I turn 90.

Art