What's the story with the 2010 SHANGHAI MINT, 2006 MINSHENG BANK, or 2004 BEIJING EXPO, etc. 1 oz silver coins. Are they more valuable? less valuable? the same? and what are they exactly, like why were they minted?
Hi 940 will have a go at answering part of your question, these are the Chinese mints commerative Panda coins. I'm not sure about the Shanghai Mint coin but the Beijing expo coin is interesting as it was the first coin show issue since 1999. There are issues of these types of coins right up to 09 each subsequent year... agriculture, banks etc. The mintages are often much lower than the BU of each year so yeah, in theory they should be worth more. Some are rarer than others though so be careful eg the 06 Jinan Bank coin has a mintage of 20,000 (great score!) while the 04 Construction Bank is at 170,000! So due diligence especially required on the commeratives.
Guess what you're really asking is if they're genuine Pandas and I'd say yes definitely, rarity and grade would determine their individual price as per usual, would like to hear others thoughts.
Many of the special issue (jiazi) silver Pandas are worth more than their regular counterparts. There are several that are very, very hard to locate and sell for $500 and up if you can find one. There are also a small group of 1/4 oz. gold special issue Pandas. Both silver and gold special issue coins form a fascinating subset for Panda collectors and are attracting growing interest. Best wishes, Peter Anthony http://www.pandacollector.com
