This is a small, inconspicuous booth in a Shanghai Coin market, easy to overlook. Who’d ever thought that one of its regular customers is none other than the legendary American investment master Jim Rogers. He drops by nearly every time he visits the city to buy China-made gold coins.

2008 Olympic commemorative gold coin

The booth is run by Xu Jianxin, a veteran gold vendor. He tells us Rogers bought the Panda Gold Coins, one of the earliest coins issued in China, during the 1980s, and has collected the whole set.

In fact, the production and collection of gold coins dates back to the Shang Dynasty, more than three thousand years ago in China. And the issuance of gold coins in modern times began in 1979, when China issued the first set of gold coins to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Since then, China has issued over 15 hundred kinds of gold coins. But it only began gaining popularity, in the late 1990s.