Procter & Gamble punched discount coupon (late 1950 - late 1960s) | Museum of Obsolete Media (original) (raw)
Procter & Gamble (P&G) introduced punched discount coupons for their products in the late 1950s. These were made from card rather than paper and had a number of punched holes in them. Earlier cards appeared to have a mix of rectangular and circular holes whereas later ones had just rectangular holes.
The punched holes meant they were machine-readable, and presumably this could speed up reimbursements to retailers.
The cards could form part of a larger piece of promotional literature, from which the punched coupon could be torn off.
It appears that Procter & Gamble were the only manufacturer to use punched discount coupons.