Chinese Food Coupons : National Food Ration Coupons 1 a

National Food Ration Coupons are coupons that circulated throughout the country and therefore could be exchanged in all parts of China.
They are among the oldest coupons and were used for the first time in 1955.

Coupons having the above header, are National Food Ration coupons.
They have 2 similar inscriptions as another type of coupons, that I will show in a later post.

Coupons of this type could circulate throughout the country for purchasing food in all parts of China.

1965 National coupons

1966 National coupons

There were numerous numbers of coupons issued, and each type has several pieces in a set.
As mentionned in previous posts, the highest and lowest value of each set are often the most rare and expensive ones. All coupons in between, are relatively cheap.

The coupons in my collection are - so far :
1965 : 半  市斤  : Bàn shi jin : half a shi jin : 250g rice/grains
1965 : 壹  市斤  : Yi shi jin : one shi jin : 500g rice/grains

1966 : 半  市斤  : Bàn shi jin : half a shi jin : 250g rice/grains

1966 : 叁  市斤  : San shi jin : 3 shi jin : 1,5 kg rice/grains

1966 : 伍 市斤 : Wu shi jin : 5 shi jin : 2,5 kg rice/grains

Anyone with some basic knowledge on chinese numbers will say that 3 (san) is written as : 三,and not as 叁.
That's correct, but when it comes to comptability, banknotes, or other kinds of financial dealings, a whole other set of characters is used.
This is to prevent fraude : imagine an transaction for 30 Yuan, written the 'simple' way :

三十 (30),  but by adding 3 strokes it becomes : 五千 (5000).

The 1966 set consists of 4 values (half, one, three and five JIN) but there are 7 notes issued.
The 3 Jin has been issued on paper with 2 different watermarks, the 5 Jin has been issued on 3 different watermarks.

5 (shi)JIN - watermark stars

The note in the picture has stars as watermark (see purple indications).
This type of coupon also exists with 1982 as date.