10 Shi Jin - Food Stamp Jiangyou, Sichuan

Chinese county-level grain ration coupons of this period were not currency — they were administered entitlements, issued under the unified grain procurement and distribution system that governed food access in the People's Republic from the 1950s through the early 1990s. A household's allocation was calculated annually by the local grain bureau based on registered population and work unit classification. The coupons themselves had no exchange value outside their issuing county, which is why provincial and national-level food stamps commanded far more practical utility during the rationing years.

Jiangyou, in northern Sichuan, was a significant industrial center by 1980, home to major steel production — the local grain bureau would have administered rations across a mixed urban-rural population under tight supply controls. The official seal is the only security feature because counterfeiting a local coupon offered almost nothing: it could not be spent elsewhere, and grain stations knew their own stock intimately.