Mintage = 0 due to SARS, mystery SOLVED. (See posts below) Does this coin actually exist? I went to check NGC grading census and couldn't find any at all, the 2004 had a LOT graded ( > 100 ) but there was zilch for 2003. Apparently there's 50k mintage + proof quality but wow it's rare? There's nothing in pricepedia as well! And nothing in Panda book apparently.
Interesting here it is at Pandaanalytics http://pandaanalytics.com/searchdb.html?fid=cdtl&paCo=2101 i've never seen it before now either. The REALLY odd thing is that Xu doesn't have it in what he calls a complete expo set!! http://www.ebay.com/itm/complete-se...547?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6b3906b3
That's the strange thing. Xu does state "except 2003" in his listing. I think perhaps due to SARS the 2003 Beijing Expo might've been canceled? Maybe that's why the coin was planned but never created, otherwise how else would NGC have 0 population on something that is < 10 years old and 50k mintage!
Very strange indeed my man, I think you are right... planned but not created, amazing. Not sure if it's for the reasons you state but crazy nonetheless. What brought your attention to this coin? Great spotting With a coin of that number mintage I would have come across at least one in the last 6 months!
Was looking for some other Panda from 2002 when I stumbled across this and thought ... wait wtf it's not in pricepedia! Then I checked my own wiki and I realized I left a placeholder there... so I decided to try and fill in the blank. Spent 2 hours searching Baidu, Google etc and no luck on pics, except that pandanalytics site and aliexpress etc (fake coin central) Strange indeedy, no idea what's going on perhaps some panda masters can shed some light. Found this thread in chinese, basically summarized my thoughts. "Didn't they cancel the thing?" is what one guy posted. HmMmMmm the plot thickens! More proof they canceled due to SARS here... just random guy on internet forum post though: http://www.bai68.com/simple/index.php?t224344.html 2003 canceled due to SARS.
The PCGS population is also zero Interesting find fishball it's crazy that a disease outbreak caused this coin to be canceled. It does make sense as SARS occurred in 2003
SARS was pretty bad. Was in Hong Kong that year and it's not something I'd like to experience again Very high mortality rates, unknown causes of sickness, symptoms very similar to a flu (!), spread through the air ... in an overcrowded city. Ugh. The Chinese government probably redirected the labor of the mint to build hospitals or something lol, I recall reading that they built a hospital in 5 days during SARS. 5 days. Guess Pandas were the least of their worries back then.
