# Blue Chip (trading) Stamps made $25,920* profit in 2006



## KenK (Mar 5, 2007)

According to pg 19 Warren Buffetts letter to owners dated 2/28/07.

Does anyone still give them out?  I can only find internet info with the past tense. nothing current ....... Can't even find a Blue Chip Stamp redemption booklet.

(It was the lowest profit of all the companies---but still a profit)

* no zeros left out


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## wackymother (Mar 5, 2007)

When I was a teenager, about 1980, I read in a magazine that trading stamps never lose their value completely. Apparently even if the company goes out of business, they have to leave a mechanism for paying for the redeemed stamps. I trotted down to my parents' basement and dug up a bunch of books of trading stamps that Mom and Dad had collected in the early to mid 1960s. I mailed them off, and eventually got about $50, which was a lot of money for me then! I remember they were redeemed for about $1.25 per book. 

I suspect Blue Chip had to leave some sort of investment fund for paying off late claims, and the investment fund made some money and didn't pay off too many teenagers who found books of trading stamps in their parents' basements.

When we go to the Poconos, there are still a few grocery stores that give S&H Green Stamps. Now it's not actual stamps (although it was, right into the 1990s), it's some sort of Greenpoints thing where you collect the points by using your loyalty club card. There was also an S&H Green Stamps credit card that I was sorely tempted to apply for, for old times' sake. 

Here's a good article on trading stamps.

http://www.studioz7.com//stamps3.shtml

And one on Blue Chip specifically. Look, they own (or owned) See's Candy! Yum!

Blue Chip Stamps

Blue Chip Stamps started as a trading stamps company called "Blue Chip Stamp Co."

In 1963, the United States government began an antitrust action against Blue Chip Stamp. In 1967, the parties agreed to a consent decree which led to the creation of a new company "Blue Chip Stamps".

In 1975, a lawsuit filed by Blue Chip Stamps was decided by the Supreme Court in the opinion Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores. This ruling helped establish the precedent that only buyers or sellers of securities can file suit for damages due to deceptive practices.

Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle of Warren Buffett, began investing in Blue Chip Stamps sometime before 1977. Berkshire's investment in Blue Chip went from 36.5% in 1977, to 60% in 1979, to the 80.1% it is today.

Trading stamp sales of Blue Chip dropped from $102.5 million in 1972 to $1.2 million in 1991.

Acquisitions

On January 3, 1972, Blue Chip obtained a controlling interest in See's Candy Shops. Blue Chip later acquired 100% of See's for an overall price of $25 million.

Wesco Financial Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Chip Stamps.


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## KenK (Mar 5, 2007)

I saw that info...but its too old and no longer accurate.  

If you have an Acme (or Super Saver) supermarket by you in North NJ, they may have S & H.

Our Acme does.  (Acme is a div of American Stores, includes Albertsons, Shaws, Alpha Beta, lots of others, but I only think some Acmes have the S & H 'points'

I wonder if they can be exchanged for RCI points...or Marriott points??


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## Dave M (Mar 5, 2007)

Ken -

I'm betting that the answer as to what has happened to Blue Chip Stamps in recent years can be found in this book. 

The preview I linked has some good info (a few bowling alleys still issued stamps in the late 1990s), but pp.114-122 of the Blue Chips Stamps story are not included in the online preview of the book. Even the last seven years will be missing, because the book was published in 2000.


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## Dave M (Mar 5, 2007)

More....

Through page-by-page reviews of the Blue Chip Stamps chapter by searching for the word "stamps", after logging in at Amazon, I found the following on page 119:





> Though it is buried deep in the filing cabinets of Berkshire Hathaway, Blue Chip remains an intact company. When people dig into the back of their kitchen drawers or open their deceased mother's trunk and find books of Blue Chip Stamps, they can be redeemed.


Although there are obviously still some revenues being recognized, perhaps related to writing off old outstanding liabilities related to unredeemed stamps and earning money on the funds set aside for those redemptions as *wackymother* suggests, that quote may be all that is left to the story.


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## wackymother (Mar 5, 2007)

I wonder if you could just call and find out? Are you a stockholder in Buffett's companies? Even if you're not, they must have some public relations reps who could answer this question.


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## KenK (Mar 5, 2007)

I guess Wackymother and Dave are right.  Probably funds are needed if there are still redemptions.

I have some Berkshire B shares.  I really seem to have a lot of trust in Warren Buffett.  (THat doesn't mean I don't think errors might be made...but he seems to always admit them....they only pay him $500,000 a year salary...but he really doesn't need it.  (ONLY is in relationship to other public companies CEOs)


If you haven't read any of this letter to stockholders, you will probably find them enjoyable.....they are in the front of the Annual Report.

His warning about the accounting section to refers to your eating your broccoli, and must be included.  ...there will be no quiz, so both of you interested in it, read on....everyone else can skip this section ...

Or the old man looking for the other guys wife:

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
Click 2006

This stock also is included with an owners manual:

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

then click owners manual

Of course I have a lot of trust in a FEW other corp executives....but their companies are not public     Remember ...  the future....PLASTICS...

I wonder if Buffett could have ever been a timeshare salesman?


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