Flour Stamp Low Income Residents, Zheng County, Shaanxi

Grain rationing coupons of this type were administrative instruments issued at the county or sub-county level under China's urban food distribution system, which began dismantling nationally in 1993 but persisted in pockets — particularly in inland Shaanxi — well into the late 1990s as local authorities wound down obligations to registered low-income households at their own pace. A 1996 issue from a chengguan-level food office is late enough to be genuinely transitional: by this point the national grain market had largely liberalized, yet this coupon still functioned as a subsidy mechanism for residents who hadn't been absorbed into the cash-transfer replacements.

Plain white paper, no security features. These were never meant to outlast a single transaction.