1 Shi Jin - Flour Stamp Xining City, Qinghai

Chinese municipal grain coupons (liangpiao) occupied a parallel economy for four decades — not currency, but functionally inseparable from survival. Issued by local grain bureaus under the national rationing system introduced in 1955, these stamps were the mechanism by which urban residents claimed their state-allocated flour, rice, or cooking oil. Without them, money alone bought nothing at the counter.

Xining, as the administrative center of Qinghai — one of China's most geographically isolated provinces — operated its own closed coupon system. A 1973 issue reflects the rationing apparatus at near-peak rigidity, well before Deng Xiaoping's reforms began unwinding the system in the early 1980s. National grain rationing was formally abolished only in 1993.