2 Shi Jin - Grain Food Stamps Libao District, Nantong City, Jiangsu

Chinese grain ration coupons of this type were administrative instruments issued at the sub-county district level, not by any banking authority. The Libao District Grain Management Office operated under the national rationing framework that had governed food distribution since the mid-1950s, allocating grain entitlements to registered residents whose household registration — the hukou — determined exactly what they could claim and where. A coupon issued in Libao was worthless in the next district over.

By 1982 the system was already fraying at the edges, as rural decollectivization under the household responsibility reforms was quietly undermining the logic of centralized grain control. Coupons from this transitional window are often scarcer than those from the height of rationing precisely because production volumes were erratic and administrative record-keeping inconsistent at the district level.