1 Person - Food Stamp Guiding County, Guizhou

Chinese county-level food grain coupons (粮票) of the 1990s occupy an odd transitional moment: the national rationing system was officially abolished in 1993, yet many county grain bureaus continued issuing local scrip for years afterward to manage residual state grain stocks and subsidized allocations to registered residents. This piece is a product of that administrative lag — Guiding County still running its own supply system three years after Beijing ended the central program.

Printed locally on plain white paper with no security features, these late-issue county coupons survive in surprisingly small numbers. They were functional tools, not archived, and most were redeemed and pulped.