Fuel Ration - 5 Gallon Ration Coupon

Australia's postwar petrol rationing scheme outlasted the war itself by several years — civilian fuel controls introduced in 1940 remained in force until 1950, a prolonged restriction that generated enormous quantities of coupon scrip administered through the Liquid Fuel Control Board. The 1948 coupons fall squarely in that twilight period, when rationing had become a peacetime bureaucratic fixture rather than a wartime necessity, and public resentment was considerable.

Each coupon represented an entitlement rather than a currency unit, which creates interesting questions for collectors about how to classify and catalog them — they circulated, were transferred, and were occasionally forged.