Details About Chinese Coins Series

By Author: ben georgi
Total Articles: 4
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Thousands of years ago, the ancient Chinese developed a special counting system, known as the twelve Dizhi (literally ?Earthly Branches?), for recording the date and time. Many astronomers and archeologists believe that the Dizhi system is based on the position of Jupiter on the Zodiac. Since Jupiter orbits around the sun with a period of approximately 12 years, the Chinese divided the path of Jupiter across the Zodiac into twelve segments, and assigned each segment a Dizhi: Zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu and hai.

From this, each year is then assigned with aDizhi according to the position of Jupiter, thereby creating the Dizhi dating system, where twelve years form a complete cycle. Note that the Dizhi dating system was developed further by integrating the basic ordinals of ancient China, Tiangan (literally ?Heavenly Stems?, to create the Stem-Branch system which gives a much larger calendrical cycle of 60 years.

For ceremonial purposes, twelve animals and mystical beasts were chosen to represent the twelveDizhi: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and ...
... Pig. The Chinese Zodiac was so born. These Chinese Zodiac animals play an important role in many aspects of the Chinese culture, such as fortune telling, folk stories and festive celebrations. Since 1981, the People?s Bank of China has issued Chinese Zodiac Coins every year to commemorate the Chinese Zodiac of the year. These coins are sometime known as the Chinese Lunar coins for the inseparable link between the Chinese Zodiac and the Lunar Calendar, the moon and agricultural cycle based calendar that was used for the past centuries by the Chinese.

Since its inception, the Chinese Lunar Coin series has performed very well, receiving popularity that is similar to the Panda coins in both coin-collection and investment prospective. This is because firstly, similar to the Panda coins, the Chinese Lunar Coin series is a staple coin series that is issued every year and therefore benefits from both public exposure and vast collection value forcomplete sets. Secondly, again similar to Panda Coins, the Chinese Lunar Coins come in a variety of sizes and weights, ranging from standard 1 oz Gold and Silver coins to Silver piedforts to therare kilo Gold and Silver coins.

The many of ways in which the Chinese Lunar Coin Series can be collected and invested in make it a popular choice for beginners as well as seasoned investors and collectors. Finally, the Chinese Lunar Coins also come in different shapes, in particular fan and flower scallop shaped coins. This variety in shape is unique to Chinese Lunar Coins and is one thing that makes this series especially distinctive and adorable.

This content has been taken from http://www.ideamarketers.com/?articleid=3246063&CFID=177546504&CFTOKEN=36840655.

The Chinese Lunar Coins with 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac have been around since 1981 and since then, coins of all sizes and shapes even, have been released. At chinesecoins.com you can get the complete information about Chinese coins. To know the history of Chinese Lunar coins, Chinese coins and Panda coins visit our gallery at http://www.chinesecoins.com/