100 000 Kip Majestic Rooster

Laos issued a series of fine gold commemoratives in the mid-2000s largely for the collector export market — pieces like this one were never intended for domestic circulation in a country where the kip was trading at roughly 10,000 to the US dollar. The face value is essentially ceremonial, a formality required to give the coin legal tender status under Lao PDR banking law.

The rooster holds particular weight in the Lao and broader Sino-Theravada cultural calendar, and 2005 corresponded to the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac — the direct occasion for this issue.