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| Issuer | Huarong County Grain Bureau (华容县粮食局) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1983 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Plain cream paper with a decorative chain-link border. The central legend in large bold characters reads 稻谷伍斤 (5 Jin of paddy rice), flanked by the numeral 5 at each upper corner. Two red diamond-shaped chop stamps appear at left and right, and a circular red official seal is impressed at centre. Validity date is printed along the lower margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Unprinted reverse showing bleed-through of the obverse text and stamps in mirror image, with the same decorative chain-link border visible around the perimeter. No additional design elements are present. |
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| Comments |
Chinese county-level food grain coupons like this one were instruments of the rationing system that the People's Republic maintained from 1955 until the early 1990s. Each county managed its own allotment books and local stamps independently of provincial or national grain coupons, meaning Huarong's issues were non-transferable outside county boundaries — a deliberate administrative constraint, not an oversight.
By 1983, the system was already under pressure. Deng Xiaoping's rural reforms had begun dismantling collective farming, and private grain markets were quietly re-emerging. A coupon issued that year by a county grain bureau was functionally closer to an administrative holdover than an active rationing tool.