10 Yuan Panda

The 1997 Panda series arrived in the middle of a significant shift in the program's history — the People's Bank of China had just ended its practice of changing the panda reverse design annually, briefly standardizing the image before reversing that decision following intense collector backlash. The 1997 date therefore carries a specific documentary weight within the series, landing at precisely the point of that policy reversal.

Hong Kong's handover that same year drove unusually strong demand for Chinese-issued bullion among both domestic and overseas buyers.