5 Yuan Goddess Kuan Yin

The Kuan Yin gold series ran from 1985 through the late 1990s and occupied an unusual position in Chinese numismatic policy — produced explicitly for export and foreign exchange earnings rather than domestic circulation, it was sold through state-controlled channels to Western collectors and investors at a time when private gold ownership inside China remained heavily restricted.

The 1996 issue is the penultimate year of the series before it was discontinued, a decision that has never been formally explained by the People's Bank of China.