250 Patacas Year of the Pig

Issued under Macao's lunar new year bullion program, this 2007 piece falls in the second cycle of the 12-year series the Monetary Authority launched in the 1990s. Mintages for these issues were deliberately kept low to serve collector demand rather than circulation, and the .999 fineness placed them outside the territory's everyday monetary system entirely — a nominal face value of 250 patacas on a coin containing a full troy ounce of gold was never intended to see a cash register.