100 Yuan Panda

China's gold Panda series launched in 1982 as a deliberate hard-currency earner, aimed squarely at Western collectors and the investment bullion market — foreign exchange, not domestic circulation, was the point. The 1986 issue is notable for carrying a fixed weight specification at a time when the series had not yet standardized its approach to purity and mass, making early-date Pandas genuinely distinct from later issues.

The 1986 also predates the controversial 1987 decision to change the panda design annually, a policy that fractured the collector base but dramatically accelerated international demand.