Some beautiful glassware with gasoline....I recall the ruby red, particularly. I still have an aluminum saucepan that my MIL got from Betty Crocker. Also remember the feed sacks, as MIL and I made a quilt with them. And green stamps........remember them?

I don't remember, but dh tells me stories of the stuff his dad used to bring home. He managed an A&P. We still use the freebie set of flatware they gave us 40 years ago.

I think I remember getting pressed glass with Quaker's Oats.

I also had some shirts made from Mexican flour sacks that I liked a lot, but they were not free. A friend gave us his collection of ruby red glassware - I never knew it was free with gasoline. He got them in Milwaukee as a child, and I grew up in Texas, and so maybe they were a regional item.

I vaguely remember the towels in some kind of laundry soap when I was a kid. I do remember Green Stamps, in fact there is an old thread here on this. I'm not old enough to remember feed sacks, though. My Mom had some dishes and kitchenware from Jewel Tea, I think the name of the pattern is Autumn Leaf. I remember lots of places of business gave away things, even when I became an adult we could get whole sets of dishes, etc. at the grocery store, you could get so much for however much you spent.

I remember Jewel Tea ---- my mom had the whole set of autumn leaf. I've seen them in antique stores labeled "vintage" . I guess I'm vintage,too LOL

I remember the towels, of course. They were striped, weren't they?

I remember the towels. I think it was "Duz"? soap?

I remember my Momma getting charms for a charm bracelet at a gas station. So many gallons of fuel and then you qualified for a charm. Sheesh I wish I had that bracelet today. It was 14K gold.

Alot of the towels I had were either striped or had pretty yellow flowers. I think that was a popular color in the 60's.

Pudgeder -- Maybe they did come in "Duz" .. I don't remember .

We got terry towels in Breeze. As the years went by, they got thinner and cheaper though.

Yes, Elizabeth, I think I am remembering the towels in Breeze. We got dish towels in something, too. They were cotton-y, mostly white with stripes on the sides, I think. My mom called them tea towels.

Edited to add picture. :)

Who remembers the little porcelain animals that came in Salada tea?

I had my first set of dishes that my Grandma Hattie got when she got for me when she purchased her Safeway groceries. They were off white with a blue design. Very special to me as she was a special Grandma!

I remember towels, glass ware and stainless flatware in detergent. We also had a nice set of tumblers that cottage cheese came in from the milkman. The colored, anodized aluminum tumblers were also from the milkman.

Grocery stores had promotions of cook ware and bake ware and dinner ware.

Gas station also had lots of freebies besides the Blue Chip and Green Stamps. I still have a recipe box of recipes from a gas station. I think it was a different category of cards for each week.

Didn't Dolly Parton and Porter Waggoner do the commercials for the detergent with the towels?

I have a nice set of the emerald green oatmeal glass. I remember the towels and my mother buying plates at the grocery at a crazy reduced price if you spent $5 or so. The plates were melmac, white and lavender violets and blue. She and I loved those plates. I found a set on EBay a few years ago and bought them for us both.

I still have the cobalt blue goblets I got for opening a CD (money, not audio!) in the early 80s. They are perfect for serving mousse, pudding, etc.

I remember the towels being striped, though. Different towels?

I remember all those things growing up, and savings and loans would give a free toaster for opening a passbook savings account.

Yes, I remember all those things, and I do believe that Duz was a leader in having "collectables" in their detergent boxes. My mother wouldn't use Duz and she would have thrown out any of the goodies in the box.

When I used to have different everyday dishes and we ate breakfast in the DR, I did collect (at flea markets, not by buying anything) those green "oatmeal" glasses. They looked great in my DR and were a perfect size for OJ.

After a certain age, I was allowed to redeem the green stamps as long as I would put them in the books. The redemption store was quite a distance away from home, so we only went there a few times a year and I had a lot of fun anticipating and planning what I was going to get. I don't recall there being much for kids in the store, so I usually got something for my mom or for the home.

Besides what others have mentioned, I remember our juice glasses came into the house as jelly jars. They had cartoon characters on them, I think, like these:

If you can find Red Rose tea bags, they still have porcelain figurines in the box. Tween DD LOVES to get those, though I can't always find the tea and don't drink much tea lately anyway.

I love hearing the stories about interesting freebies with purchase :)

I have a porcelain hedgehog from the tea box. My Aunt Winnie sent it to me because she knew I liked armadillos. LOL I just loved her to death, she was funny like that.

My mother saved Betty Crocker coupons to redeem for "silverware." I still have a collection of stainless steel knives, spoons and forks I got from the gas station, a piece with every fill. I remember reading that sometimes the free gift in the detergent box was cheaper for the manufacturer than the amount of detergent it displaced. I bought my Revereware pots and pans as a bride to be with the remaining Green Stamps my mom had saved years before.

Red Rose tea has stopped including the figurines in the boxes of tea. One can still get them if one orders tea directly from Red Rose, but the price is about double what I pay for it at Marc's. I usually buy that brand just for the price and always gave the figurines to my niece until she outgrew them, then my neighbor's little girl.

I still have a set of the "Swedish Modern" glasses from Duz. They are really good quality and I love the size and shape of them. Over the years Duz offered a couple of different designs of glassware, and also dishes made by Homer Laughlin at one point.

One of the local gas stations also offered "Dolls of the World" that my mother collected for me. Blue Bonnet margarine had a similar set also.

I also have a set of dishes collected from the grocery in the 1980s; I think the deal was a discounted price based upon grocery spending.

Wow raee, you really bummed me out today. I have an unopened box of Red Rose that I bought less than a year ago and they were still doing the figurines at that point :^( DD is going to be so disappointed.

Sheilajoyce, you reminded me that when I was little, one of the gas stations would give out plastic safari animals with a fill up. They were the small ones- an inch or two tall, and it seemed like they came as a family of 3 animals, but memory is hazy.

We're still using the FREE drinking glasses, juice & wine, we got with every gasoline fill up. We have another case of them...in case we break one. :0)

I remember the mesh bags that came in boxes of tide powder.

Does anyone recall dishes in detergent?

We used to get a cup out of Quaker Oatmeal. That was the only reason I ate oatmeal. I really don't like the stuff. Lol!

Cheer or another detergent sometimes had foreign currency in the box.

You could get a Native American necklace made out of seed beads from some place. That may have been mail order. The necklace had a little seed bead chief on it.