1 Shi Jin - Grain Food Stamp Wuhu City, Anhui

Chinese grain rationing coupons (粮票) were a product of the planned economy's distribution system, in use nationally from 1955 until the early 1990s when free markets made them obsolete. Municipal-level stamps like this one from Wuhu were only valid within the issuing city's jurisdiction — a traveler crossing into the next county would need a different coupon entirely. Provincial and national-level stamps ran parallel to local ones, creating a layered rationing hierarchy that local grain bureaus administered with considerable autonomy.

Wuhu, a Yangtze River port city in Anhui, was historically one of China's major rice trading hubs — something of an irony given that its residents in 1982 still required coupons to purchase it.