What did it mean when the phone company sent you stamps?

September 30, 2024 8:22 PM

Occasionally I find references in old works of fiction to the telephone company sending people stamps instead of money. One example is in the Nichols & May “Telephone Operator” sketch. What were these stamps? It’s surprisingly hard to get good information about them. Were they postal stamps? (If so, why?) Could you pay your phone bill with them? All I want is a good reference link. Thanks!
posted by goingonit to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

I understand they were what we'd call pre-paid vouchers, and yes, you put them on the bill when you paid it. There are some images of 19thC ones here.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:52 PM on September 30

I wouldn't swear to it, but I think they're referring to green stamps here.

I don't know if they gave you green stamps for spending money on long distance, but I would not be surprised.
posted by shadygrove at 8:53 PM on September 30 [1 favorite]

The suggestion of using postage stamps in lieu of cash or check rings a tiny little bell I can hardly hear. It makes (or made) a certain amount of sense for amounts less than a dollar for people who may not have bank accounts. I wouldn't think a telephone company would do that on a regular basis, though.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:05 AM on October 1

Related data: When the Sears Roebuck company first went into business customers could pay for their order “cash only — remit by post office money order, express money order, bank draft, cash, or stamps.”

Ordinary postage stamps and privately printed bills were used as a secondary form of currency. This is not surprising. We currently use plastic as a secondary from of currency and it has passed well into being a primary form of currency. You can still use Canadian Tire Money at the retailer in Canada. When I was very little people might sometimes use it informally such as when settling for a lunch "Shoot, I am eight cents short, okay if I give you 10c of it in Canadian Tire Money?"

There were a lot of different stamps being issued - trading stamps, stamp books, tax stamps. But now it's all plastic, with rewards programs and such that we have to keep track of electronically.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:07 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]

I don't have a link, but I seem to remember businesses issuing small refunds by mailing the customer ordinary postage stamps. Later on, with increasing automation, such a small refund could simply be applied as a line item deduction on the next month's bill.
posted by JimN2TAW at 5:13 AM on October 1

Before my time but when I was young I remember the fine print in some advertising directed at kids, like in comic books, stating that payment could not be made in stamps. I'd guess it was postage; that stamps were once treated more like currency. And why not? Issued by the government, difficult to reproduce, has the value printed on it, and used widely, by everybody.
posted by Rash at 5:45 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Back when a quarter or a dime was a significant amount of money, if you had to pay for something through the mail for $0.89, it was impractical to mail three quarters, a dime, a nickel, and four pennies. Postage stamps had the same value, as mentioned above a government-backed value, and didn't weigh a lot or possibly bust out of the envelope in the mail carrier's bag. And, everyone needed stamps back then, so a mail order business getting stamps in the mail just let them ship things out without needing to get stamps from the Post Office all the time.

So, the joke is that he put a dime into the payphone but didn't make a call and wants to get the dime back from the phone, so the phone company is going to mail him his refund, but rather than signalling the phone to return the dime (which I'm not sure is even possible) or mailing an actual dime it's adding insult to injury that they're going to probably send him three three-cent stamps and a penny stamp, which is why the audience thinks it's funny, because while it's technically the correct response it's a frustrating experience when you just lost a dime to a telephone. It's like buying something expensive with your credit card, the transaction going bad, and the retailer tells you that they'll send the refund by mailing you a Mastercard Debit card that you'll receive in up to ten to sixty days, instead of just reversing the charge your account.

Language note: Another term for using stamps is 'fractional currency' -- non-metallic money in denominations less than a dollar. The US military uses this a lot for bases in other countries, because shipping a million pennies is impractical versus sending over plastic pogs marked with monetary value.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:45 AM on October 1 [3 favorites]

Once, 20 years ago, upon exiting a parking ramp and finding myself short of the fee, I convinced the attendant to accept part of the payment in a few stamps that happened to be in the car!
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:18 AM on October 1