4 Kilograms - Standard Fertilizer Xiantao City, Hubei

A commodity ration coupon, not a banknote in any conventional sense — though it circulates through specialist collections with the same seriousness. China's supply cooperatives issued tens of thousands of these local scrip variants during the planned economy's final decade, each redeemable for a specific physical commodity at designated state outlets. This one authorizes the bearer to claim four kilograms of standard-grade fertilizer, a allocation that tells you something about the granular level at which agricultural inputs were being rationed in rural Hubei as late as 1988.

The dual-authority format — supply cooperative and grain bureau jointly named as issuer — reflects the overlapping bureaucratic mandates that defined township-level resource distribution before market reforms fully displaced the rationing system in the early 1990s.