1 Yuan Swimming

Issued as part of China's extensive Olympic commemorative program for the Beijing 2008 Games, this piece belongs to a series that ran across multiple years and denominations — one of the largest state-sponsored commemorative coin programs in modern minting history. China produced commemorative issues for nearly every sport on the Olympic roster, flooding the market in quantities that have kept secondary values modest across the board.

Brass circulation-quality commemoratives from this program were distributed through the People's Bank of China at face value, meaning many entered ordinary commerce rather than collector hands.