# How to Shop with War Ration Book Two (1943), the Office of Price Administration's point-rationing guide How to shop with War Ration Book Two is a February 1943 Office of Price Administration instruction sheet. Six numbered panels explain blue point stamps for canned, bottled and frozen foods, and a yellow strip with two helmeted servicemen says the foods go to fighting men first (NAID 514549). - Home - Archive - How to Shop with War Ration Book Two (1943), the Office of Price Administration's point-rationing guide How to shop with War Ration Book Two How to Shop with War Ration Book Two (1943), the Office of Price Administration's point-rationing guide The OPA's February 1943 guide to War Ration Book Two: six panels on blue point stamps and a strip that says "Foods are going to our fighting men." ## Techniques named on the archive record Transfer Date1943Made byOffice of Price AdministrationMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514549; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) U.S. Office of Price Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1023 (NAID 514549). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org How to shop with War Ration Book Two is a February 1943 Office of Price Administration instruction sheet. Six numbered panels explain blue point stamps for canned, bottled and frozen foods, and a yellow strip with two helmeted servicemen says the foods go to fighting men first (NAID 514549). ## The six rules This is a how-to sheet. Six illustrated panels, each with a number and a caption, walk a shopper through the new point system: which stamps count, how points work, and what to hand the grocer. A yellow strip with two servicemen in helmets carries the reason. HOW TO SHOP WITH WAR RATION BOOK TWO ... to Buy Canned, Bottled and Frozen Fruits and Vegetables; Dried Fruits, Juices and all Canned Soups 1. USE THIS RATION BOOK. You may use one or all of your family's ration books when you shop. You may not shop with loose ration stamps. 2. USE BLUE STAMPS ONLY. All blue point stamps marked A, B, and C are good during the first ration period. They add up to 48 points for each member of the family. 3. THE NUMBERS SHOW POINTS. You will not be able to get "change" in point stamps, so save your low-value stamps for buying low-point foods. [...] Foods are going to our fighting men. They come first! Your ration gives you your fair share of the foods that are left. [...] [imprint:] OPA; U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-504426; United States Government - Office of Price Administration, Washington, D. C., February, 1943 Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514549, local id 44-PA-1023, Record Group 44. The other three panels say to check point values before buying, since they "have nothing to do with prices or quality"; to tear the stamps out in front of the grocer or the delivery boy; and that fresh fruits and vegetables are not rationed. ## Who issued it The Office of Price Administration issued it, and the imprint dates it to February 1943. A copy is in the National Archives, Record Group 44. The archive classes it as a state sheet for the domestic public whose purpose was to mobilize or secure compliance, under the home front and the economy. ## How to read it Most of this sheet is not persuasion at all. It is a set of rules, stated plainly, with a number on each one. The archive tags only a faint transfer, in the strip where two helmeted men lend their weight to the line about fighting men coming first. That line is the argument. The sheet speaks as a rule-giver, in the second person: "You may not shop with loose ration stamps." It does not dress the rules up as a favor. It states them and gives a reason. That is an honest way for a government to impose a burden, with no enemy and no shame attached. Whether the controls were wise is a separate question the sheet does not raise. The same office's case for rationing as fairness is on Rationing Means a Fair Share for All of Us and the 1942 Rationing Safeguards Your Share. The Roosevelt administration essay describes who held which wartime power. ## Sources - FRAME object record, How to shop with War Ration Book Two, 1943. Office of Price Administration. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-1023, NAID 514549, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/how-to-shop-with-war-ration-book-two-1943/