10 Shi Jin - Fine Flour Stamp Harbin City, Heilongjiang

Chinese grain rationing coupons — liangpiao — were a product of the planned economy's distribution system, which ran from the early 1950s until the market reforms of the 1990s dismantled it province by province. This particular coupon, issued by the municipal grain bureau rather than a provincial or national authority, was valid only within Harbin city limits; attempting to purchase flour with it elsewhere would have been refused at the counter. The hyperlocal issuing structure meant thousands of distinct coupon types were produced across China, most in tiny print runs with negligible survival rates.

Heilongjiang's grain bureau network was among the more administratively complex ones, given the province's role as a major wheat-producing region supplying quotas upward to the state while simultaneously rationing consumption locally.