Introducing Non-Noble Metal Chinese Commemorative Coins

Great looking coins Robert.

How many other surprises have you got for us?

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Originally posted by bob_yan_cn

There are only 73 coins from 1984 till now. I will not introduce all of them.

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Why not?

I understand that you may not have time to take pics of all of them, but you can give us some links maybe?

We're hungry for coins, can't you see

Please see these which are really worth mentioning. The new techniques used on new commemorative Chinese coins.

From 2001, I think, or 2002. The mint factory in China adopted some new techniques on non-noble metal commemorative coins. I think these new techniques were mainly for silver or gold coins. It is really good that we can see these new tech on normal commemorative coins.

One of the technique is micro engraving. On reverse of World Cultural Heritage coins, on both top and bottom you can see very small engraving of Chinese spelling of "shi jie wen hua yi chan " These spelling are of 6 Chinese charactor whose meaning is: World Cultural Heritage. Also on reverse of Taiwan Scenery coins, on both top and bottom you can see " tai wan feng guang". These engraving is very small and hard to see. I took pictures last night under electric light and it can not show the spelling clearly. I found that in the moring under natural light, it is more clear.




Another coin that adopted micro engraving technique is Xinhai Revolution coins. On left of the coin there are 4 Chinese Charactor. The same 4 Chinese Charactor has also been engraved on the line atop 90 and other 2 Chinese Charactor. When you see the upper right picture you will notice there are 2 blace points on both left and right of the line. 1 point is one Chinese Charactor.



The other new technique is also used on Xinhai Revolution coin. That is also a kind of engraving. We can only notice the engraving from special angle. For example, on upper 2 pictures, it is hard to see, while on lower 2 pictures you will notice 1911 - 2001 on that line atop 90.

Another coin adopting this technique is 50 anniverary coin for peaceful liberation of Tibet. On right of the coin, from some angles you can see the 3 star and 2 Chinese Charactor. The 2 Charator is Îå and Ê®. Together they mean 50.

Now it is time to introduce these old commemorative coins. "old" is just relative. The first set of circulated commemorative coins in China was issued in 1984 to commemorate 35 annivesary to establishment of People's Republic of China.

This 3 coin set is very meaningful.
Also because this is the first set commemorative coins, they are very very beautiful.
The 3 designs are all very complicated and detailed.
My following picture show the 3 different obverse design and the same reverse design which is at right bottom.




1 yuan commemorative coins from 1984 to 1990 are of about 30mm in diameter, larger than 1 yuan coins from 1991 to today which are about 25mm in diameter.

International year of peace. YUAN coin minted in 1986.



40th anniversary of PRC. YUAN coin minted in 1989.
This is the second coin to commemorate establishment of PRC. Altogether there are 3.
The first set is 35th anniversary 3 coin set.
The last one is the 50th annivery bi-metal 10 YUAN coin.
However, I feel the first set is the most beautiful, the last one is not very nice.




40th anniversary of establishment of People's Bank of China. YUAN coin minted in 1988. This coin is the most expensive commemorative coin of all the circulated commemoratives. The market price for this coin is almost USD200.00 in China. And for this one, there are a lot of counterfeits.




3 JIAO coin set minted in 1987 to commemorate the 6th national games.
This is the only JIAO commemorative coins in China.
The size is small, like JIAO coin of Great Wall 4 coin set.

China has some great looking coins Bob.

I have not seen many of them before.

I made a quick research on the national anthem of the PRC, it doesn't look anything like this.

I recorded the melody shown in those six notes.
Here you can get it in mp3 format. (The best way to get it is right click on this link and save as..., it's a small file)


The speed is not on the coin, so the small file is played in 120 BPM. Maybe the original is faster or slower.

Does it sound familiar?