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1 Shi Jin - Shanxi Province Cotton Stamps
| Issuer | Shanxi Provincial Supply and Marketing Cooperative |
|---|---|
| Year | 1979 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Vertically oriented coupon printed in ochre-yellow with a geometric guilloche border enclosing a cotton boll vignette at the lower centre. The issuer's circular red seal with five-pointed star appears above the large black denomination characters 壹市斤, with the year 1979 in red numerals below. A perforated secondary coupon stub at the foot bears the numeral 1 within a diamond-shaped underprint frame. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 山西省棉花票 山西省供销合作社 (红章) 壹市斤 1979 付券撕下作废 付 1 券 |
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| Comments |
Cotton purchasing in Mao-era and early reform China operated through a strict quota system — farmers could only sell cotton to the state, and buyers required coupons to acquire it. Shanxi Province's Supply and Marketing Cooperative issued these stamps as ration instruments tied to that procurement network, not as currency. The "shi jin" unit (市斤) equals half a kilogram, the standard Chinese commercial catty.
1979 sits right at the inflection point of Deng Xiaoping's early agricultural reforms, when the state ration apparatus was still fully intact but beginning its slow unwind. Shanxi was a significant cotton-producing region at the time, which gave these stamps genuine local economic weight.