2016 2 oz Australia Lunar Series II - Year of the Monkey 9999 Gold BU Coin
Part of a 12-year cycle from Australia’s oldest operating mint, the Year of the Monkey coins are available in silver and gold, with each version bearing a different reverse design. LPM now offers the 2016 2 oz Australia Lunar Series II - Year of the Monkey 9999 Gold coin in BU condition. - Contains 2 oz of .9999 fine Gold - Each coin comes in a plastic capsule. - Obverse: The Ian Rank-Broadley likeness of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, along with the Gold purity and face value. - Reverse: Features an adult monkey sitting on a branch of a peach tree, symbolic of longevity and immortality. - The Chinese character for ‘monkey’ and the inscription ‘Year of the Monkey’ also appear in the design with The Perth Mint’s traditional ‘P’ mintmark. - Sovereign coin backed by the Australian government. Lunar Series II coins were introduced in 2008 with the Year of the Mouse coin. The series followed immediately in the footsteps of the popular Lunar Series from the Perth Mint, which was in production from 1996 to 2007. The Lunar Series II coins from Perth Mint are part of a 12-year production cycle that represents each of the animals from the Zodiac. In the Chinese Lunar Calendar, an animal was chosen as a representative of each birth year in the cycle. Those born under the sign of a particular animal are said to share traits and characteristics with those creatures. On the reverse side of the 2016 1 oz Australian Gold Monkey is Ing Ing Jong’s Year of the Monkey design, exclusive to the gold version of the coin. In her image, a single monkey is featured resting in a peach tree, and glancing back over its shoulder at a peach dangling from a branch above. The obverse bears Queen Elizabeth II’s right-profile picture. Although a new fifth-generation image of Her Majesty was unveiled in 2015, the Perth mint is sticking with Ian Rank-Broadley’s fourth-generation image from 1998 to give Lunar Series II coins a sense of continuity in obverse design.