150 Yuan Year of the Tiger

China's gold panda and zodiac programs launched in the early 1980s as deliberate foreign exchange earners, targeting the collector export market rather than domestic circulation. The 1986 Tiger issue was part of this lunar zodiac series at a moment when the People's Bank of China was still refining its precious metal coin program — mintages were kept tightly controlled, and many pieces went directly to overseas distributors in Hong Kong and North America without ever entering mainland commerce.