10 Shi Jin - Shandong Province Food Stamp

Chinese provincial food stamps (liangpiao) were ration coupons, not currency, though they functioned as a parallel exchange medium throughout the planned economy period. Shandong Province issued its own grain ration series independently of the national system, redeemable only within provincial boundaries — a deliberate administrative constraint that prevented inter-provincial arbitrage of subsidized grain allocations.

By 1984 the national rationing system was already under pressure from Deng Xiaoping's rural reforms, which had dismantled the communes and unleashed grain surpluses in many regions. This stamp was issued just as the logic that created it was beginning to collapse; full abolition of the urban grain ration system came in 1993.