2 Shi Jin - Liaoning Province Food Stamp

Chinese provincial food ration coupons of this type were administrative instruments, not currency — they entitled the bearer to purchase a specific grain allocation at a state-controlled price and were non-transferable in theory, though a black market for coupons operated openly in most provinces throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Liaoning, as a heavy industrial province, maintained a tightly administered grain rationing system well into the reform period; coupons like this one continued circulating alongside the market liberalization that was theoretically rendering them obsolete.

The control stamp is the only authentication measure, which made counterfeiting straightforward. Ration coupons were formally abolished nationally in 1993.