AgAuNugget: Bank of China releases a silver coin to celebrate the New Year

The first new coin from the Bank of China this year and in a twist I certainly couldn’t have predicted, it has a snowman on it. For the third consecutive year the BOC has released a silver coin for the event, the second with a weight of 8.0g after the general resizing of their precious metal coin weights last year. The 2015 coin was a traditional 7.78g (¼oz) in weight. Mintage is a huge 2.7 million, up from 1.9m in 2016 and 0.6m in 2015. We’ve not seen the packaging this year, but prior years have had the coin mounted in a neat, colourful gatefold blistercard with a certificate. Despite the mintage, these aren’t the easiest things to track down outside of China, but Lucius Precious Metals have the last two coins in stock, so we’d expect them to get this one also.

MINTS DESCRIPTION: The Spring Festival is the most solemn traditional festival in China. It is also a symbol of unity, prosperity and a new hope for the future. According to set, the Chinese people have 4,000 years of Spring Festival history. The origin of the Spring Festival on a variety of claims, but the most common argument is the rise of the Spring Festival since the Yushun period. Spring Festival, generally refers to the beginning of the first month, is the first day of the year, also known as the lunar calendar, commonly known as “New Year.” But in the folk, the traditional sense of the Spring Festival is from the twelfth lunar month or small sacrifice festival, until the fifteenth day, in which the New Year’s Eve and the Spring Festival for the climax.

During the Spring Festival, the Han Chinese and some ethnic minorities have held various activities to celebrate. These activities are to worship the ancestral gods, pay homage to ancestors, in addition to the old cloth new, Yingxi receive blessing, praying for the rich as the main content. The activities of the Spring Festival are rich and colorful, with strong national characteristics. Influenced by the Chinese culture, some countries and peoples belonging to the Chinese cultural circle have the custom of celebrating the Spring Festival.

DESIGN: The word “Fu” (blessing) on a house wall, a snowman, a lantern,  a Chinese knot and the denomination. On the obverse the National emblem of the People’s Republic of China, and the country name, reign.