Polish Food Stamps of the Communist Era

Polish food stamps from the Communist era. These were given out monthly (I believe) with an employee's pay. The foods which were rationed were flour, candy, chocolates, detergent, cigarettes, alcohol, soap, oil/lard, meat (all by grams/packs/bottles), and milk (by liters). Other items you could buy with cash, but it by no means meant that they were even available. Not that the rationed items were either. The only plentiful thing seemed to be cheese, but that pretty much tasted like cardboard. Cars and gas required special tokens that you had to do some shameful things to obtain. One of the most sought-after items was toilet paper with the awesome consistency of sandpaper.

Cotton wool was also on Stamps :)

My wife says her family used to send one person whom had permission to travel with a mission to come back with a suitcase full of whatever was most needed; be it toilet paper, oranges, shoes, etc. When they got off the train their suitcase would be packed to bursting, and they would all split their ill-gotten gains among each other.

and who exactly would they get these items from?
The only thing you could buy was meat and meat products smuggled from the countryside, that if the 'farmer' managed to get someone to travel to the city and sell. Selling on the black markedt was punishable by prison, that is why you could only 'sell' to your trusted friends.

Different towns would be out of or have a surplus of different things. One shop might have plenty of fabric, but no fruit. Another might be flush with pencils but no paper. You coordinate with family, and you get what you can, and trade what you have extra.

"To co było to się nie zdarzyło choć w pamięci mojej trwa...."

Memories of Things that never happened

tekst 21 postulatów do przeczytania.

Thank you Adam, and on behalf of thetenminuteman, I also extend my appreciation. He is always eager to be served by knowledge. The clever and the oppressed will always find a way to get what they need, regardless of the obstacles. And that doesn't meant they have to sell themselves out, or betray their principals.

I remember them times as young person I was involved in some black market items like alcohol, cigarettes and meat.
The curious ting about the ration stamps everyone one got them so with cigarettes and vodka you could buy stamps and sell the product on black market

then I discover that in stores ( Pewex ) you could buy those items without ration cards, as example bottle of vodka was 600 zl at the store after hours on black market it was 800 zl but the dollar that that time was 500zl and bottle of vodka was a dollar so quickly I switch from trying to by ration stamps to buying dollars and raising my profit.

Good old times.

Hello there. I don't know if anyone is still checking this but I was wondering if anyone knee what the R-PIII on the P-2 and P-3 cards was?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Some crazy memories of standing in the food lines for HOURS. In the meantime they started rationing the butter or bread or meat by half. Got to the counter-sorry were out! But the employees got theirs.

People fought and bitched. To improve customer relations, they introduced : "a book of complaints and gripes"- /my translation/.NO one ever wrote stuff in that book unless you wanted a visit from 'UB'. "Ubek" a personification of a local party enforcer..Think. REAL sob

One time in my neighborhood someone sold a stork! on a black market.Claiming it was a goose..Second Polish national bird, 'frajer'- sucker was drunk on vodka. Poland takes their storks very seriously, was talk of war when some african country's military used them for antiaircraft battery practice...People raised rabbits in basements on food scraps, some ate mourning doves- pigeons were too sick and greasy.We made hooks from copper wire went fishing 'illegal without government issue fishing card', or used the same tackle to catch pheasants..

These were extra coupons for items which the authorities were able to supply in larger quantities in certain months. The info about the sort of additional goods was published in newspapers.

More interesting facts here
docplayer.pl/4352408-Sklepy-w-czasach-prl.html


That legend was told all over Poland. :) One time it was a stork, another a swan. :):)

hi Adam! I'm curious if you could say more about the phrase you quoted- where did it come from? I googled and only found a song, but no translated lyrics into English and unfortunately my Polish is extremely poor. Any insight would be so appreciated. My email is watsonee93@gmail.com

@Emma e.Watson
AdamKadmon is long gone, however the quote you're asking about is a line from a song called Zakazane wakacje by Wojciech Gąssowski.