50 Yuan Year of the Pig

China's lunar gold series has been issued annually since 1981, making the 2007 Pig the twenty-seventh entry in an unbroken run that began under Deng Xiaoping's economic liberalization push. These small-denomination gold pieces were never intended as circulating currency — the face value is purely nominal, a legal fiction that allows the People's Bank to issue them as bullion while maintaining sovereign coin status.

The 3.1g weight corresponds to one-tenth of a troy ounce, a sizing borrowed directly from the Panda bullion program introduced in 1982.