We’re not quite sure how the Mint of Poland has managed to maintain such a high standard of design for its numerous ancient history/mythology themed coins, but the fact remains it has done so. With such outstanding coins as Ares, Anubis, the White Horse of the Apocalypse and more, they’ve set the bar for new issues very high indeed. Their latest coin has no problems meeting and exceeding it, but there’s bad news.

With the recent popularity of KOMSCO’s Korean bullion round range, the demand for Ancient Asian themed coins has never been higher, so we’d expect this latest issue to be extra desirable. Regular readers will know the drill by now. Our first look at these coins usually entails ArtCAM renders and that’s the case here. Our second look is always being impressed at how good the finished article is, and we’ve no reason to suspect otherwise for Zhao Yun.

A Chinese warrior of the third century, Zhao Yun is pretty well known in China, but less so elsewhere, although coin collectors are used to learning about some of these ancient gods, myths and historical figures from this hugely impressive numismatic genre. The warrior on horseback isn’t a new idea, but it’s rarely been realised so well as it has here. The spear has lent the artwork a sense of perspective often missing from lesser examples. The obverse carries the obligatory mugshot of QEII, but set against a backdrop of Chinese dragons. Again, this looks great and the mint is to be commended for its work customising what is usually a drab face, as it has with previously in similar series. We’ve not seen packaging yet, but it will come in a wooden box and the mintage is capped at 500 pieces.

A gorgeous coin in our view and up there with the best the Mennica Polska has put out recently. We did mention at the beginning that there is bad news, however. That is, the coin is to be sold only in China. Very disappointing and likely to make tracking one down both expensive and difficult (it ships at the end of March). Only you can decide if it’s worth the trouble. We suspect the answer will be yes if you want one as much as I do…