Mystery Cinderellas: Your Thoughts?

Thanks in advance if you have the time and interest to reply. My guess is that these served a wartime function... or maybe something like a "Top Value" trading stamp.

Hi

These are commonly known as "trading stamps."

They were intended to be placed into booklets, and when the booklets were filled up, they could be redeemed for various "gifts." These were things like inexpensive appliances, towels, and other household goods.

They were used by merchants to attract repeat customers to their stores.

Jim

You may also have had the variant of "dividend" stamps, used by the Co-op stores in the UK. Stamps in a booklet, and then, I think, a money payment. The current shop loyalty card is, I suppose, the modern version of these things.

As Mr. Drummond indicated, what you have is commonly known as "trading stamps". Similar to S&H "green stamps", Jewel T premiums, coupons found inside cigarette packets, etc. IOW, an early form of "affinity marketing".

Believe Wallace & Co was an early purveyor of affinity/premium marketing programs for retail companies within the U.S. Believe the stamps you posted were employed by Piggly Wiggly markets. A grocery chain found in the US southeast.

Woolworths Australia issued stamps like this, same size/design years ago. It was a bit of a craze and the birth of store loyalty cards. Shops would issue stamps with say $10 on each stamp, you got one for ever $10 you spent in the store and you filled a card and could trade the full card for an item from a list free or maybe a cash discount on your next purchase. All sorts of stores got in on the fad.

Woolworths from my collection......

Also from my collection, Wallace in a nice Puce shade.....



From the legendary Mr. Art Mongan ( whom named "selection stamps" cinderella)
To me, in 2007

Hi
Collectors in Great Britain might remember Green Shield and Co-op
trading stamps. It has been reported that the first trading stamp was
"The Blue Trading Stamp" from Great Britain about 1880. In the US, it
has been reported that the first trading stamps were used by the
Schuster's Department Store in Malwaukee, Wisconson in 1891. But I have
a stamp booklet from Dewey Trading Stamps (Troy, New York) that states
"established 1872".
As to how many different trading stamps there were, I recorded
about 10,000 different from over 4500 different names in 1999 and did
not have much information on the many thousands from Europe.
Art

Solved:

Your Trading Stamp is from Australia... Coles / Super K mart

From another forum, author "saphilatelist"
Coles New World and Super Kmart (Wallace and Associates Inc).

Australia's other dominant supermarket group is Coles. Beginning in 1914 as a variety retailer Coles expanded into groceries in the late 1950s and opened its first supermarket in 1960. The variety business continues to flourish trading under the K-Mart name. The first Australian K-Mart store was opened in 1969.

Coles and K-Mart both participated in continuity promotions in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s. Coles was a founding partner of FlyBuys in 1994 and I do not know of any continuity promotion after that date. It appears that Coles continuity promotions were partnered by Wallace and Associates Inc - a company specialising in organising these promotions.

The Wallace promotions were similar in operation to the Woolworths Saver Stamps except they called them bonus certificates. I have seen two sizes - the large 30mm x 22mm stamps and the small 22mm x 15mm stamps. The stamps were also issued in pads - the large stamps in panes of ten and the small stamps in panes of twenty. Other formats are likely to exist. Some stamps have ESPCo on reverse side. Like the Woolworths Cash Saver stamps the Wallace Bonus certificates come in different colours - presumably for different promotions. For most promotions one certificate was given for each $5 spent although the 1987 Scanda Glassware promotion required a $10 purchase to receive each certificate. The collector sheets shown here were given to me recently and the use of small certificates on sheets obviously designed for large certificates casts some doubts on the relationships between the two. At this stage they are all I have to go on so any challenges and additions are welcomed. Please post scans of anything that differs from, or adds to, this group.

Coles New World Promotions

I have this one down as Great Britain..but it may be Australian as well.