The beautiful Austrian gold series featuring the Vienna Philharmonic. This is the 1/10th ounce (200 schilling) denomination.

Between 1967 and the early 1980's, the only monetary world bullion gold coin was the South African Krugerrand. It was the first coin to contain precisely one ounce of gold, and by stamping with a monetary value the Krugerrand could be owned by US citizens. During gold's boom and 1981 crash other governments looked at doing the same, leading within a few years to the US Eagle, Canada's Maple Leaf, the Australian Nugget, China's Panda series and this Philharmonic from the Kingdom of the East. Other, newer issues have proliferated in all four of the major precious metals: silver, gold, platinum and palladium.

Many people collect these to preserve a store of value against inflating currencies. The favorite example is this: in 1964 a dollar was convertible to about 0.72 ounces of silver, and bought about three gallons of gasoline. Today that same amount of silver still buys about three gallons of gasoline, while the dollar is worth about 1/13 of its 1964 value.

The dollar is, of course, the world's "strongest" currency.