Just when I thought there were no more piles of “stuff,” I opened another drawer in a small, 4-drawer cabinet. Two drawers stuffed with articles clipped from the newspapers, including many columns about this Hawaii and Hawaiian dating back as far as the 1960s. And obituaries. I guess when you live into your 90s, you see a lot of friends, and people who you knew or knew of, pass along before you. My mother clipped obituaries. She has obits of family and friends, of pioneering people, of community figures, of people she went to school with, or their brothers, sisters, parents, children, etc.
And then some goodies, like these tiny little stamps. What are they?
The read, “Profit sharing stamp,” “Liliha”. 10 cts.
They are small. Old.
Anybody have an idea? Please share.
UPDATE: Other remnants turned up in one of the other drawers. Here are three of them, including old Royal Stamps and Blue Chip Stamps. Notice the ones at the bottom, which are also marked “profit sharing.” So I’m guessing these were early trading stamps that competed against the larger or better known brands.
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Wish I knew more about those stamps. It’s an interesting subject.
I remember stores & gas stations back in the day issuing ‘S & H green stamps’ – and there was a catalog to order from, or store that you could go to, where you could trade in completed books for merchandise. It was a way for stores to ‘value-add’ at the time. I distinctly remember pestering my Mom to get me the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” album with some of the stamps. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26H_Green_Stamps
ok one more link (sorry – can’t edit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_stamp
It looks like trading stamps were a hot topic in the legislature circa 1907-1909. See for example Hawaiian star article:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015415/1909-12-23/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1909&sort=date&rows=20&words=stamp+stamps+trading&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=7&state=Hawaii&date2=1922&proxtext=Trading+stamps&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
I’m guessing it was a Haole merchant vs. Chinese merchant thing? Looks like a potentially fascinating historical research topic.
There’s mention of green stamps and red stamps but so far I haven’t found liliha profit sharing. Since some to considered stamps like an inducement to shop (bribe?) maybe calling them “shares” was a way to avoid criticism about “trading stamps”?
Thanks for that – interesting article on “Rapid Transit” wanting to build a new car barn for the 12 or so cars they wanted to add to their existing system that ran down King St. Too bad it didn’t stay that way. We could have had a nice, quiet ‘rapid transit’ system a long time ago!
A short article on Honolulu’s last streetcar, along with a map of the Alapai yard may be found here:
http://www.ascehawaii.org/heritage2012.htm#1204
Profit sharing stamp ad from New York paper 1909:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1909-01-22/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1836&index=1&rows=20&words=PROFIT+profit+profit-sharing+SHARING+sharing+stamp+stamps+STAMPS&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=Profit+sharing+stamps&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
I remember when the the Gold Bond Building was where you redeemed Gold Bond Stamps…must have been the late 60’s. They used to have a little stamp-spitter machine next to the cash register at P&P market.
I also remember that if you just threw them into a drawer and didn’t get them pasted into a book in time the humidity would laminate them into a solid blob.
Randy Crossley launched “Aloha Trading Stamp Co.” in the mid-1950’s w/support from S&H national brand but then sold out to Gold Bond, the other big player in the field. Gold Bond in HI under Ed Brennan, an early TV pitchman here, built the Gold Bond building. Crossley said he thought the trading stamp fad could last 10years in Hawaii so he sold out after seven. He was quite defensive about their alleged efficacy for consumers, and once got “off message” during his campaign for governor in ’66 at an Ala Moana Center political rally defending them.
I recently found four Lincoln square profit sharing stamps from 1930 from Chicago IL in a box that belonged to my grandfather whom I’m named after. I wanted to know is there a market for profit sharing stamps do people collect them. Grandpa left me no inheritance. If there is a market these are quite old and how do I determine the value of these stamps. I was hoping a stamp collector would get back to me ASAP. If there valuable I could sure use the money. Hopefully it would be enough to get my Illinois drivers license back. That would truly be a blessing from my personal lord and savior Jesus Christ Almighty. For my lord does work in mysterious ways sometimes, quite often actually.
I have two green stamps marked p.s cash value 1mill