They became Argos.
Richard Tomkins founded Green Shield Stamps in 1958. Green Shield Stamps was a sales promotion scheme and shoppers at certain supermarkets (such as Tesco) and petrol stations would be given stamps based on how much they spent. The stamps were saved in a book and could be traded for goods from the Green Shield shops or from a catalogue.
If you hadn’t got enough stamps to get the product you wanted, you could use cash for the difference. In 1972, Tomkins decided that Green Shield customers should be able to use cash only if they wanted, so he rebranded the shops as Argos, named after the Greek city of the same name.
Argos was an instant success, and that was the start of the demise of Green Shield Stamps.
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