1000 Yuan Year of the Ox

This piece belongs to China's Lunar Gold series, which the People's Bank of China launched in 1981 as an explicit hard-currency export product — the coins were never intended for domestic circulation and were sold almost entirely through foreign dealers and banks to capture overseas demand for investment-grade gold. The 1997 Ox issue was produced at a moment when Hong Kong's handover was dominating international attention toward China, and export premiums on Chinese gold issues that year reflected unusually strong collector demand.

Mintages for the kilogram-class lunar pieces were tightly restricted, typically in the low hundreds.