The price of customer loyalty ……. down the ages

So, I wonder what a future archaeologist will make of my Costa loyalty card.

Costa Gift Card, 2021

I say mine but I found it in the house and it could have been mislaid by anyone of the family, not that its owner heeded the message on the back ….. “PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS CARD AND TREAT IT LIKE CASH”.

And that got me thinking of loyalty cards down the ages.

Today, they are usually plastic, which are swiped at the cash till and instantly record the purchase and clock up the points.

I grew up with the Co-op divi, although unlike everyone I know I have long ago forgotten the number which I was ordered by mother to offer up at the RACS store on Well Hall Road.  

2d token issued by the R.A.C.S.

The divi was a more old-fashioned way of recording customer loyalty, but still an advance on the bit of paper which the cashier stamped at the Hanbury’s store or the one from Barbakan which when full entitled you to a free loaf of your choice.

Not that these loyalty cards should be confused with the far older tokens, which were issued as substitute money by some mill owners which could only be redeemed in the company grocery stores, which was really a double whammy.  

For having already paid out low wages the employers went one better because  their workforce had to use the stores where the produce might be more expensive and of a lower quality than could be bought in a conventional shop.

And then there were those other tokens in the form of half pennies. These were not strictly coinage but tokens which were only redeemable at the warehouse of the merchant who issued them.  

Half penny, 1791

But during the 17th and 18th century there was little low denomination coinage issued and so enterprising businessmen here in Manchester and in Liverpool and other Lancashire towns made their own.  

Our coin was issued in 1791 in Liverpool as part of a very large series by Thomas Clarke who produced ten tons of these copper coins between 1791 and ‘94.   Clarke was a Liverpool merchant. The coin itself although common remains a beautiful piece of work.  The obverse side shows a ship under canvas with crossed laurel branches beneath and the inscription Liverpool Half penny.  The reverse bears the motto and arms of Liverpool. 

Ours had not fared so well and part of the upper mast and rigging from the ship had worn away.  

I have no idea how it ended up in the parish churchyard or whether it had been used or was just a keepsake, but its Manchester equivalents may well have circulated in the township and there may even have been a reciprocal agreement between the merchants of Manchester and Liverpool.

It was found in the graveyard of the old St Clement’s church beside the village green and came to light during an archaeological dig led by Angus Batemen in the late 1970s and early 80s.

Of course, Angus knew what the half penny was, but I wonder what his successor might make of that Costa Gift Card.  

I doubt she might instantly recognise it as a means  to a cup of coffee.  

Perhaps she might instead assume it was some how connected to that great divide between the tea drinkers and the coffee drinkers, or maybe a love token with that swirling heart image.

Co-op stamps, circa 1969

Leaving me to reflect that loyalty is always being upgraded, so the divi number became the Co-op blue stamps and is now that bit of card or the App on the phone, which still works on that simple level of rewarding you for what you have bought and acting as a way of getting you back again, and again and again.

Silly history I know …. but history.

Location; our house

Pictures; Costa Gift Card, 2021, 2d token issued by the R.A.C.S., date unknown,and book of Co-op stamps, circa 1969,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Half Penny, 1791, detail from the report on the Archaeological dig conducted by Dr Angus Bateman during 1980-81