100 Yuan Kite Flying, Gold Bullion

China's gold Panda series launched in 1982 and quickly became one of the few bullion programs to change its reverse design annually — a deliberate policy that transformed the coins from pure bullion into a parallel collector market. The 1992 kite-flying issue was part of a special subset breaking from the Panda design altogether, produced for the international collector trade at a moment when Chinese numismatic exports were expanding rapidly through authorized dealers in Hong Kong and the United States.

KM#417 is among the more modestly distributed issues from this cultural subset. Mintage figures from the People's Bank for these specialty gold pieces were rarely disclosed with precision.