File:1 cent - Guangdong Province, Five Goat Coin (五羊錢) - Republic 25 (1936) Primal Trek 01.jpg

English: A copper-alloy coin issued by the provincial government of Guangdong during the "Mainland period" in the history of the Republic of China. This particular 1936 specimen was among the coins donated to the Zhuhai Museum by a Chinese coin collector hid his coins during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) of the People's Republic of China to save them from the irate Red Guards who were intent on “destroying the old” culture of China and all of its (physical) symbols. The scan of this coin displays its remarkable detail for its design and use of various traditional Chinese symbols.

Because the “five (5) goat” coin (五羊錢) manufactured in the Guangdong Province was determined not to be in accordance with the newly adopted national “legal tender”, or "Fabi" (法币 / 法幣), reforms passed by the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China of 1936, these "five (5) goat" coins were recalled from circulation and were subsequently melted down. This meant that after circulating for only a very short period of time only a small numbers of them have remained extend into the present time and at auctions they now (as of 2011) typically sell for more than $ 20,000 (twenty-thousand United States Dollars).

The inscription at the top translates into the English language as as “Republic of China 25th Year” and “Made in Guangdong Province” and reads "中華民國廿五年" and "廣東省造". The lower half of this coin displays a collection five (5) goats. On the coin, each of the five (5) goats is depicted standing in a different pose and in such great detail as to even include their whiskers. The attention to detail on this copper-alloy coin even includes displaying patches of grass present for the five (5) goats to eat to signify that the food in the area is plentiful for them to graze.

In this context, the five (5) goats depicted on the coins are a reference to an ancient Chinese myth concerning the city of Guangzhou (Canton) which is the capital city of the Guangdong Province, where this coin was minted.

Based on this original ancient Chinese myth, the City of Guangzhou is known in Mandarin Chinese by a number of nicknames such as the “City of Goats”, which is pronounced as "Yangcheng" (羊城) in the Mandarin Chinese language, “Sheaves of Rice City”, which pronounced as "Suicheng" (穗城) in the Mandarin Chinese language, and the “City of Five Goats”, which is pronounced as "Wuyangcheng" (五羊城) in the Mandarin Chinese language. In translation from the Mandarin Chinese origins, the English words “goat” and “ram” can be used interchangeably to translate "Yang" (羊).

The details of this ancient Chinese myth tends to vary from story to story, the most basic form story is as follows. During the reign (899 BC – 892 BC) of King Yi (周懿王) of the Zhou Dynasty, the ancient city of Guangzhou, then still known as "Chuting" (楚庭) suffered from a major period of severe famine. The farm fields were completely parched and the people living in Chuting were starving. One day, five (5) different immortals (“celestial beings”) descended from the sky upon the city. Each one of the immortals rode on a goat and floated down on a cloud. In the mouths of each of the goats was a six-eared rice stalk. The immortals the proceeded to bless the land surrounding the city to be forever free of famine and gave the stalks of rice to the people. The immortals then rode their clouds back into the sky to return where they came from. However, unlike the immortals the five (5) goats remained on a hillside and there they were transformed into stone. With the gift of the rice stalks given to the people of Chuting by the immortals the famine ended and according to the myth the City of Guangzhou and its surrounding lands have enjoyed bountiful harvests ever since.

This coin also includes a collection of other symbols of the City of Guangzhou in its design. For example, surrounding the round centre hole which is meant to represent the battlements of the ancient wall that once encircled the city in its past. To the left and and the right sides of its centre the coin displays the mountains from the Guangzhou area, with the mountain on the left side of the round centre hole appearing to be further in distance than the one located on the right side.