Green Stamps Catalog: S&H Catalogs, History and Value Now

The green stamps catalog was the S&H Green Stamps rewards catalogue: a book of housewares and other goods that shoppers could get by handing in filled books of stamps, either at a Green Stamps store or by mail. In the 1960s the Sperry & Hutchinson company distributed 35 million catalogs a year and issued more stamps than the US Postal Service (Wikipedia; Internet Archive).

Old catalogs are easy to see. The Internet Archive holds the S&H Green Stamps Ideabook of 1968, 182 pages, free to read online. It is the most direct answer to what green stamps could buy, and it is the kind of item people search for when they remember filling books at a grandparent's kitchen table.

Retailers bought stamps from S&H and gave them to customers in proportion to what they spent (Wikipedia). The details, from the same article:

• Stamps came in 1, 10 and 50 point denominations, with gum on the back.
• A collector book had 24 pages of 50 points, so a full book held 1,200 points.
• Filled books were exchanged for goods at Green Stamps stores or through the catalogue.
• A 1963 article cited by Wikipedia put the cost to supermarkets at about $2.45 per filled book, around $25.36 in 2024 dollars.

Stamps were handed out at supermarket checkouts, department stores and gas stations.

Not as money. According to Wikipedia, the S&H greenpoints programme was discontinued on October 4, 2020, and it was announced that all legacy S&H Green Stamps no longer had value and could not be redeemed.

They are not postage either. Green stamps are trading stamps, a retail loyalty scheme, so they cannot pay for mail and are not collected as postage stamps.

Any value left is as memorabilia. We did not find a reliable, dated price record for old books, sheets or catalogs, so we give no figure.

A separate digital programme now runs under the S&H Green Stamps name at mygreenstamps.com (copyright 2026, S&H interactive). In a post of August 14, 2026 it describes a model in which local causes nominate businesses and supporters earn stamps; its pages we read did not say that old paper stamps can be redeemed.

S&H Green Stamps were given at the checkouts of supermarkets, department stores and gas stations (Wikipedia). Many chains ran a rival brand instead, which is why a book found in a drawer may not be S&H at all. Wikipedia lists these competitors:

• Greenbax Stamps (Piggly Wiggly)
• Triple S Stamps (Grand Union supermarkets)
• Plaid Stamps (A&P supermarkets)
• Gunn Brothers (Safeway)
• Eagle Stamps (May Department Stores, notably May Company stores)
• Gold Bell Gift Stamps (Midwest), Gold Bond, Blue Chip, Top Value, King Korn, Quality and Buccaneer stamps

The name on the stamp or the book cover tells you which scheme it belonged to.

The decline was long. From Wikipedia:

• 1896: Sperry & Hutchinson founded.
• 1960s: peak, with 35 million catalogs a year.
• 1970s and 1980s: steady decline.
• 1981: the founders' successors sold the company to Baldwin United.
• 1999: a member of the founding Sperry family bought it from Leucadia National; by then only about 100 US stores offered Green Stamps. The company later introduced greenpoints for online shopping.
• 2013: Anthony Zolezzi, founder of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, bought the company with plans to relaunch it.
• October 4, 2020: greenpoints discontinued and legacy stamps declared without value.

In 2026 the S&H Green Stamps name is again in use for the digital programme at mygreenstamps.com described above.

Green stamps look like postage stamps, gummed and perforated, which is why they turn up mixed into stamp collections. They were never valid for mail. If a box from an estate contains both, separate them: the trading stamps belong with household memorabilia, while the postage stamps are worth identifying one by one, starting with our stamp collecting for beginners page.

The design had a cultural life too: Andy Warhol used S&H Green Stamps imagery in his Pop art in 1962 (Wikipedia).

Research and drafting were assisted by AI, and every date and number was checked against the sources listed below: Wikipedia's article on S&H Green Stamps, the Internet Archive record of the 1968 Ideabook and the S&H Green Stamps website. We give no market price for old stamps or books because we found no reliable dated record.