1 Yuan / 1 Dollar Pattern, Inauguration of Zhang Zuolin

Zhang Zuolin's inauguration as Grand Marshal of the Republic of China in June 1927 prompted the Tientsin Mint to prepare this pattern as a proposed commemorative issue. It was never authorized for regular production. Zhang himself was killed less than a year later — Japanese Kwantung Army officers detonated a bomb beneath his private rail car at the Huanggutun crossing in June 1928, an act the Japanese government initially denied and which triggered a significant political crisis in Tokyo.

The extreme rarity of this piece follows directly from its pattern status: struck in very limited numbers for approval that never came.