10 Yuan Calligraphy

The Calligraphy series, launched in the mid-1990s, was part of a broader People's Bank program to position Chinese cultural output as collectible hard currency — a deliberate pivot toward numismatic export revenue at a time when China was aggressively expanding its precious metals minting operation. The Shanghai and Shenyang mints competed for these contracts, and attribution between facilities for specific years in this series remains contested among specialists.