When you think of the history of China, your mind likely wanders over to the Great Wall as its most iconic surviving structure. That history is considerably more interesting, and convoluted, than you might believe. Rather than being a single project, the idea of the wall actually came to full fruition over two millennia, with the first small parts dating back as far as the 7th century BCE, and the joining of some of those done under the rule of Qin, the first Chinese Emperor in the 3rd century BCE. Little of that remains.

The wall continued to grow, and to connect, right through to the 17th century CE during the Ming Dynasty, and much of the popular stretches of the wall today, date from this period. It wasn’t just built for defence, and it was used as a border for the imposition of taxes on Silk Road trade, and to control migration. Defence remained important, and the wall is littered with towers, and barracks for soldiers, aimed at protecting China from Northern invaders, like the Mongols.

It now sits several hundred kilometres inside China, extending from the North Korean border in the east, to Jiayuguan in the west. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t a single unified structure, but rather an amalgamation of over 10,000 wall sections, and over 30,000 other structures. The remaining wall spans a staggering 21,196.18 km (13,170.70 miles) when added up, with the Ming Great Wall being 8,850 km long, much built in brick with sticky rice mortar. Almost a quarter of the Ming Great Wall has gone, hardly surprising given the CCP’s obvious contempt for China’s cultural history.

As regular AgAuNewsers will know, we’re huge admirers of CIT’s mountain coins, especially in their ultimate form, The 2016-22 Seven Summits range, which leveraged the CIT/BH Mayer tech, smartminting, to give us a look at the biggest mountains on each continent. Recently, they’ve gone in the opposite direction, utilising the technique to add great valleys to their latest ‘Topography’ series. Those are available as a five ounce, and a kilo, while this Great Wall coin, weighs in at a more affordable three ounces.

The striking feature on the reverse face is an elevated mountain range, perched on the top of which is a gilded section of the Great Wall, complete with watchtowers, snaking its way along the ridge. The relief hits 8 mm in places. To the right is a standard relief scene of the wall, giving us a classic view that relates well to the other section of the coin. The colour and the gilding (including the Chinese characters 万里长城, meaning ‘ten thousand miles long wall’), enhance a very striking face.

The obverse continues the Chinese theme, with a gilded Cash Coin, complete with square hole, and decorated with a pair of Asian-style dragons circling it. The issue inscriptions, and the effigy of King Charles III, sit over a Chinese themed symbol. The coin comes boxed in a floating frame. As you can tell, we’re really impressed with this one, and it takes a position as one of the best releases of the year, in our view. It’s certainly a concept we’d like to see more of, and a couple of subjects in the same vein spring to mind…