GIFT COUPONS

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 5

GIFT COUPONS

END OF THE SYSTEM ELEVENTH-HOUR RUSH FOR GOODS Few households or persons do not possess gifts of some kind or other which were obtained with cigarette and other coupons. The Trading Coupons Act, however, is now in force, and the obtaining of gifts in such a way is a thing of the past. An eleventh-hour rush took place last week to the premises of various firms which were the agents for different brands of cigarettes, and the staffs were kept particularly busy attending to the callers. In many cases people who had not previously redeemed their coupons came along with hundreds, and even thousands, to collect gifts of some value, while numbers brought smaller bundles to secure gifts in addition to those which they had received from time to time.

The new Act, which repeals the Trading Stamps Prohibition and Discount Stamps Issue Act of 1908, prohibits the redeeming of coupons in any other form than cash, and restricts redemption to the issue of the coupons and the seller of the goods concerned, and lays it down that no persons other than manufacturers, packers, importers, distributors, and sellers of goods may issue coupons, and these will have to be redeemed in cash. Gifts of all kinds were offered in exchangfe for coupons, and in time this led to an agitation by shopkeepers and business houses, especially jewellers, who complained of the loss of trade suffered as the result of the gift scheme. There was also particularly strong opposition against the operations of companies whose business was to trade in coupons, promising certain retailers the sole use of the system in their locality and advising customers to trade with those retailers. Any person guilty of infringement of the new Act is liable to a penalty of ".200.