Macau issued this piece through the Imprensa Nacional–Casa da Moeda of Portugal, reflecting the territory's administrative status in 1988 — still under Portuguese governance a full decade before the 1999 handover to the PRC. The Dragon year issues from this period were aimed squarely at the collector and casino-adjacent souvenir market that made Macau's economy function.
KM#38 shares its planchet specification with a raft of Commonwealth commemoratives of the same period, the 28.28g/.925 standard having been effectively globalized by the Royal Mint's influence on colonial and semi-colonial minting contracts through the 1970s and 80s.
Macau issued this piece through the Imprensa Nacional–Casa da Moeda of Portugal, reflecting the territory's administrative status in 1988 — still under Portuguese governance a full decade before the 1999 handover to the PRC. The Dragon year issues from this period were aimed squarely at the collector and casino-adjacent souvenir market that made Macau's economy function.
KM#38 shares its planchet specification with a raft of Commonwealth commemoratives of the same period, the 28.28g/.925 standard having been effectively globalized by the Royal Mint's influence on colonial and semi-colonial minting contracts through the 1970s and 80s.