And since Gray Drug gave Top Value Stamps with purchases, the ad above featuring our pal Toppie the Elephant ran in the Lorain Journal on the eve of the opening.
As I've mentioned many times, Top Value Stamps really utilized their goodwill promotional pachyderm to drum up interest. Besides the lunch box and thermos that is worth a fortune today (that the Brady family owned), there were many items with his likeness, including the clock below that's currently on eBay.
Many of us oldsters remember the laborious task of affixing the stamps to the pages of the books, some of which didn't get redeemed, and ended up on eBay, decades later. I remember the book design below, which dates from 1966.
Although Top Value Stamps has been out of business for decades now, Toppie is still recognizable to enough sentimental Baby Boomers that his image appears on such items such as T-Shirts and mugs.
4 comments:
Filling up stamp books was not only fun but rewarding. Sitting around the kitchen table with my Mom licking and pasting stamps is a nice memory, in some sense it taught us to save and delay gratification. I got my first tennis racket with TV stamps, I believe they had a redemption store on 5th St. downtown and one later in the Lorain Plaza on Meister Rd. Also, I remember waiting until Tuesday or Wednesday (I think) to buy my first RCA console TV from May Co. because you got double Eagle Stamps.
As a baby boomer of long (74 years) standing, I can truthfully say that I have never hankered for a t-shirt or other artifact advertising Top Value Stamps. Heck, I barely remember Toppie.
Which leads me to these questions - Why an elephant? Why the checkered pattern and hat? Is this some kind of thrifty-Scottish play? Are there elephants in the Highlands that I didn't know about?
If I had to guess, I would say being a smart thrifty shopper and don't forget (elephants never forget) to shop at stores that give TV stamps could be a reason.
You're exactly right. I just found an ad in the Lorain Journal from April 1956 for Universal Cleaners that includes a tiny image of Toppie at the bottom of the ad that reads, "Don't Forget... We Give Top Value Stamps."
Post a Comment