1000 Yuan Panda

The 1993 1-kilogram Panda is among the largest gold coins China has ever produced for the collector market, issued at a point when the People's Bank of China was still establishing the Panda series as a serious international investment vehicle. The series had launched in 1982, and by the early 1990s mintages on the largest denominations were deliberately kept low to sustain secondary-market premiums — a policy that succeeded, perhaps too well, in making these pieces effectively inaccessible to most collectors at the time of issue.

The 1993 date carries additional significance: it preceded the 1994 shift away from year-specific designs on the bullion versions, a policy change that briefly caused confusion among dealers distinguishing collector from investment issues.