I did a double-take when I saw the stack of coupons on a tray in a glass case at the auction house. No, I thought to myself, they couldn’t be auctioning old product coupons.
But there they were, sitting there proudly next to trays of baseball cards and other sports ephemera. I could see someone putting the coupons away years ago and forgetting them. But what I couldn’t fathom was the auction house trying to sell them.
One of the auction assistants was just as perplexed as me as I shuffled through the coupons for Aunt Jemima pancakes, Cheer detergent in a box (before it was liquefied, I suppose), Metrecal wafers and soup, Dial soap, Ajax cleanser, Teem soft drinks, Maxwell House coffee and more.
We lightheartedly joked about what someone would do with them. As we stood there, an auctioneer walked up and I pulled him into the conversation. Maybe some people collect them, he surmised.
I wondered about that, and later I Googled. I couldn’t find a collection or anyone admitting that they had a collection. Most people, I suspect, hoard grocery coupons for the time when they’ll actually need the product. I’m not one of them; I rarely use coupons, but I probably should.
The coupon that caught my eye had Granny of the 1960s TV show The Beverly Hillbillies hawking Kellogg Corn Flakes for 7 cents off. Most of the coupons were from the 1960s; several had expiration dates of 1963 and 1964.
There was even an old flattened Shredded Wheat cereal box (maybe this was a collector or vendor). The price tag on the lid was 20 cents. Folded among the coupons was an ad for Wawa Farm Dairies (now just plain Wawa. A month or so ago, I got at auction a vintage green milk pail embossed with Wawa Dairies).
The store ad showed orange juice selling for 54 cents a quart and bacon for 79 cents a pound. The company was apparently thinking about its customers’ health because the ad included a section called “Diet Corner,” featuring cottage cheese at 24 cents a pound and a free booklet for the “Blitz Diet” that would take off five pounds quickly.
As I looked through the coupons, I wondered how much savings you’d get from coupons today for the same products. Had they increased because of inflation and higher prices?
So I went Googling again. I found plenty of websites offering coupons for free if I signed up. And there were plenty of people who gave themselves names like coupon maven for their prowess at saving money by couponing and showing you how to do the same.
Saving with coupons seemed to have picked up over the last decade. A Yahoo News article last year noted that collecting coupons faded during the 1990s and early 2000s, but had seen a resurgence with the tanking of the economy. It offered a list of sites where you can grab them.
I also came across a few groups of collectors, like the Cutting Edge Club in Atlanta, that will teach you how to save with coupons. Another site offered a primer on coupon-collecting. Closer to home, Ella Haynes-Hook, who writes the We Are Black Women blog Taking on Life, has become a coupon enthusiast herself.
Here are the cents-off coupons I found on the web with savings for then and now:
Maxwell House instant coffee:
Then: 15 cents off. Now: Someone on eBay was selling 15 $1 off coupons good until Aug. 31, 2011. Starting bid: $3.59. No takers.
Jergens lotion:
Then: 10 cents off. Now: You can get a $1 off coupon if you complete the company’s “Glow Advisor” to determine the right product for you.
Dial soap:
Then: 5 cents off. Now: $1 off Dial Body Wash, bar and liquid hand soap.
Aunt Jemima pancakes:
Then: 8 cents off. Now: $1 off.
Kellogg Corn Flakes:
Then: 7 cents off. Now: $1 off on two boxes.
Minute Rice:
Then: 7 cents off. Now: 50 cents off.
At auction, the coupons were among the last lots for sale. By the time the auctioneer got to them, he was asking buyers to choose items they wanted to bid on. No one called out for the tray of coupons. They probably already have too many of the ones they can actually use.
