Richard Tompkins, returning from a business trip to America and seeing the popularity of Green Stamps, purchased the name Green Shield from a luggage manufacturer and founded Green Shield Trading Stamp Co in 1958, along similar lines to S&H Green Stamps. They were popular during the 1960's and 1970's. Competing trading stamp schemes included Pink Stamps (a UK operation of their US company,) Co-op dividend stamps, Blue Chip and the short-lived UK operation of King Korn but none came close to rivalling Green Shield.
At the height of their success the Middle East wars broke out, causing massive fuel shortages, motorists were more concerned about filling the car's tank than they were about collecting trading stamps. To add to Green Shield woes, their biggest customer, Tesco, pulled the plug. Tompkins, however, always the entrepreneur, decided that the Green Shield showrooms could trade in cash instead of trading stamps and rebranded the stores giving them the name: "Argos."
The ultimate in irony. At the peak of Green Shield's rise, their biggest customer, the supermarket company, Tesco, passed their rival Sainsburys, this caused a furore with the latter. They called the trading stamp companies a plague on the retail trade. How they lambasted both Tesco and Green Shield. And the irony? Sainsburys now own Argos.