100 Yuan Lion Dance

The Lion Dance gold series from this period occupied an unusual position in Chinese numismatic production — issued not for domestic circulation but almost entirely for foreign exchange and collector export, a deliberate hard-currency strategy the People's Bank pursued aggressively through the 1990s. The 1995 issue falls within a run that attracted particular attention from Hong Kong and Southeast Asian collectors ahead of the 1997 handover, driving premiums well above melt on the secondary market almost immediately after release.

KM#836 is sometimes conflated with the contemporaneous Unicorn and Panda issues from the same mint year, but the Lion Dance pieces were struck in notably smaller quantities.