Green Coupons

In decades past, many Australian households had little pocket-sized albums in which were stuck hundreds of tiny stamp-like coupons. These were diligently saved until the books were full and then traded for items at special stores that were operated by the companies that issued the stamps. A number of these loyalty schemes existed, but for many years the biggest and most popular was probably the Green Coupon. It seems that Green Coupons began in the United States in 1896 when the Sperry and Hutchinson Company introduced their clever scheme, under which they sold sheets of "trading…