10 Yuan Year of the Ox

China's lunar silver program has issued Ox coins across multiple cycles, but the 2009 issue falls in the second cycle of the twelve-year series, which the People's Bank launched with considerably higher mintage ceilings than the now-legendary first-cycle issues from the 1980s. The first-cycle 1985 Ox remains the benchmark against which all subsequent issues in the series are measured — original mintages were so low that secondary market premiums have never fully corrected.

The 2009 issue was also produced alongside a gold counterpart, part of the PBC's strategy of issuing bimetallic lunar sets aimed squarely at the international collector market.