Chinese Flowers Coin
The Chinese have made many unique coins in recent years, and two of the most collectible series are the Chinese Silver Flowers and the Chinese Silver Fans. The Flowers coins, made in the shape of an eight-petaled blossom, are highly prized by collectors and are a good investment if you are interested in buying and selling coins for a profit.
You can see how much these special coins cost by looking at the 1999 Silver Rabbit Flower Coin. This coin, for reasons known only to the Chinese mint, weighs only 2/3 of an ounce, so its current spot value is somewhere around $24. However, because so few of them were made – with only 6,800 produced – and because of its beauty and rarity, the current selling price for a proof is $500 or more.
Recent Silver Flower releases have much higher mintage, of course, with around 60,000 being typical. Nevertheless, these releases can command anywhere from $200 to nearly $1,000, even though they were only produced a few years ago. Clearly, getting in on the early purchases of each new release is a wise decision for those who want a coin that gain value fast over time.
It’s hard to buy Chinese Silver Flower coins for certain years because they tend to sell out extremely fast. When you discover a stock of these coins, you should pounce while they are still available, rather than waiting and not getting the coins at all. APMEX and Panda USA (www.APMEX.com and www.pandausa.com) are two of the premier sources for these coins, though again, they sell out quickly when they do manage to source these coins to sell on the secondary market.
These coins are also well suited to serve as a store of value, because, although their initial purchase cost to you is far higher than the silver’s intrinsic value, they are such highly desirable collectors’ items, that their price as a collectible bullion piece will only increase in time.
About the Chinese Silver Flower Coins
Practically every culture that has advanced beyond the mud hut and the chipped flint spearhead has liked flowers – their beauty, their richly living tints which vary from the delicate to the almost garish, their elegant and sometimes fantastic forms, and their array of sweet perfumes have all given them a value to humankind far more than just a way to pollinate useful plants.
So, the Chinese have no extra claim to a highly sophisticated appreciation of flowers. The inhabitants of the Indian Subcontinent, the Persians, the ancient Egyptians, the Europeans, and even the ferocious warrior empires of Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica developed a pleasure in flowers which included not only a liking for these natural objects as works of art, but even as parts of philosophies and religious symbolism.
However, it is the Chinese alone in the modern world who decided to make use of the shape of a flower in the production of a coin. The Chinese Silver Flower coins of recent years have a wavy boundary which resembles the eight petals of a flower. More than likely, this is a highly stylized image of a chrysanthemum, a flower which originated in China and has played a major role in the art of both that nation and Japan for several thousand years.
Whatever its exact origin, the Chinese Silver Flower coin is one of the world’s most unusually shaped coins at this time, along with the Silver Fan, and is likely to continue to be extremely successful among collectors for years to come.
Chinese Silver Flower Coin Unique Characteristics
The Chinese Silver Flower coin is a one troy ounce coin, with several exceptions, as described below. The diameter of most of these coins is 40 mm, or 1.5 inches, which makes them the same size as most other silver bullion coins. All Chinese Silver Flowers have a wavy edge meant to represent the petals of a flower. There are eight “petals” and eight depressions in all.
All Chinese Silver Flower coins have a face value of 10 yuan. Many of the designs are exact copies of those appearing on the Silver Fan series, since the Silver Flowers also have a Chinese zodiacal theme. Some of the coins, however, have unique images on them. Thus far, less Silver Fans have been produced than Flowers – the series is still fairly new.
Chinese Silver Flower coins were first introduced in 1995, the Year of the Pig. They were quite small to start with, weighing 2/3 of an ounce and measuring only 1.2 inches (30 mm) across. They were, however, 99.9% pure silver, or of a .999 fineness, so they are genuine bullion coins, just oddly stunted ones. These small flower coins continued to be produced for six years, with the last one appearing in 2000. These 2/3 ounce coins were issued in a total mintage of 6,800 coins, all proofs.
The motifs which appeared on the 2/3 ounce Chinese Silver Flowers include the Pig (1995), Rat (1996), Ox (1997), Tiger (1998), Rabbit (1999), and Dragon (2000).
Starting in 2001, Chinese Silver Flower coins increased to 1 troy ounce, with mintage staying at 6,800, though in subsequent years it rose to 8,000 and finally to the current 60,000 Silver Flowers struck annually. All of the coins appear to be proofs, which is further supported by the fact that all recent ones come encapsulated, with a storage box and a certificate of authenticity. The motifs which have appeared since the size of the coin was increased to the standard 1 ounce include the Snake (2001), Horse (2002), Goat (2003), Monkey (2004), Rooster (2005), Dog (2006), Pig (2007), Rat (2008), Ox (2009), Tiger (2010), and Rabbit (2011).
