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The 10 yuan coin was issued by the People's Bank of China for the Year of the Pig in the Chinese lunar calendar; reservations opened on 21 December 2018 and exchange ran through January and February 2019. New Year commemorative 贺岁 coins are released ahead of the Spring Festival and issued to the public at face value.
Image description
The main subject of the reverse is a piglet, rendered as a combination of traditional jianzhi paper-cutting and the decorative idiom of the nianhua New Year print. Above it are a gongdeng palace lantern and pomegranate blossoms — a long-established symbol of numerous offspring and abundance; the cyclical year mark "己亥" appears on the left. The obverse carries the inscriptions "中国人民银行" (People's Bank of China), the denomination "10元", the romanisation "SHIYUAN" and the year of issue "2019", set against a tuanhua ornament in the form of a rounded floral rosette.
Historical context
The Pig (猪, zhū) closes the 12-year Chinese zodiac cycle, and 2019 corresponds to the cyclical pair 己亥 (jǐhài) — the year of the Earth Pig. As the final sign it is traditionally associated with completion, taking stock, and the abundance accumulated over the preceding eleven years. The pig was domesticated in China exceptionally early: bones of domestic animals are known from the Neolithic sites of Cishan and Jiahu, some eight thousand years old, and the animal became a measure of household prosperity. This is fixed even in the writing system: the character 家 (jiā) — "home, family" — consists of the roof radical 宀 with the sign for a pig 豕 beneath it. The pomegranate shown on the reverse means "many sons, much fortune" (多子多福) in Chinese symbolism, on account of the fruit's abundant seeds, while the palace lantern alludes to the Lantern Festival that closes the New Year celebrations.
Numismatic significance
The issue belongs to the 贺岁普通纪念币 series of circulating New Year coins, which the People's Bank of China strikes in mass mintages and releases at face value through advance reservation and exchange at banks. The 2019 mintage is 250 million pieces — among the largest in the series — so the coin remains affordable, and collector interest rests chiefly on complete sets. The Year of the Pig is the fifth coin of the second cycle of the bimetallic zodiac series, opened by the Goat in 2015 and closed by the Horse in 2026, and the only issue in that cycle to bear the closing sign of the zodiac. In Chinese culture the pig stands for plenty and ease, so the coin is traditionally given at the Spring Festival as a wish for a well-fed and untroubled year.