½ Shi Jin - Flour Stamp Baoshan, Yunnan

Chinese grain ration coupons of the reform era are frequently mislabeled as currency — they were not. This stamp-coupon (粮票) entitled the bearer to purchase half a market unit of flour at state-controlled prices, issued under the rationing infrastructure that had governed food distribution since the 1950s. Baoshan, a prefecture-level city in western Yunnan near the Burmese border, maintained its own local grain bureau system independent of provincial and national coupon networks, meaning this piece was valid only within county boundaries and could not be redeemed elsewhere.

By 1981, rationing was already loosening in coastal provinces, but remote Yunnan border regions retained tight grain controls well into the late 1980s.