500 Yuan Panda

The Panda gold series has been issued annually since 1982, and for most of its run each year's design has been unique — a deliberate policy that drives secondary market premiums well above melt. The 2011 issue is one of the last before the People's Bank standardized the obverse temple design more rigidly, and also predates the 2016 shift from troy-ounce to metric weight specifications, which briefly disrupted international dealer pricing across the entire series.