200 Yuan Leopard

China's early gold bullion program launched in 1981 was partly a foreign exchange initiative — the coins were not intended for domestic circulation but for sale to overseas collectors and investors, generating hard currency at a moment when the PRC was aggressively courting Western capital following the post-Mao opening. The leopard issue from that inaugural year carries a low mintage relative to the panda series that would eclipse it entirely within a few years.

By 1983 the Panda had become the flagship, and the wildlife series was quietly discontinued. First-year 1981 pieces were struck at the Shanghai Mint.