Want to know why 2012 could be the hottest year EVER for investment grade modern Chinese coins? Two reasons:

1. 2012 is the year of the dragon, the most popular and important in the 12-year lunar cycle.
2. 2012 is the 30th anniversary of the panda, since minting began in 1982.

The panda and lunar coins are China's flagship products - The two most important series of coins in all of China! They have the same simultaneous historic anniversary events only once every 60 years, when it will be both the year of the dragon, and the anniversary of the Chinese panda. The next "conjunction" will be in the year 2072, when few of us will still be living to tell stories about how we used to buythese coins for less than a month's wages.

I believe that 2012 may mark the end of an age in modern Chinese coins, and the beginning of a new one.

With both the lunars and the pandas simultaneously drawing the attention of investors and collectors around the world, 2012 will be memorable. Did you buy all the coins you wanted? What, you think they're too expensive? It's time to break the piggy bank, because this is the end of the era of affordable rare coins. The prices we will see in the next 60 years will define you and your investing that you have done during the most fertile time to get into this market.

It's possible, though unlikely, that 2012 will come and go unnoticed. If that happens, then make sure you stock up on any 2012-dated coins that end up with low mintages. I don't think it will happen, so instead stock up on whatever is rare and beautiful from the earlier years that you can stretch far enough to afford.

I have been telling people to buy lunars, especially dragons - but, I have also been cautioning people not to sell their other coins unless you're upgrading. I didn't give the details because I expected you to receive my tips as good advice, based on my long public track record of giving good advice.

So, now you know. The secret is out, and the buying frenzy begins. We're deep into the busy season, but it's still pretty limp compared to a normal busy season. That will begin to change as people recognize the huge significance of the year 2012. By early 2012, we will know more about what to expect for the remaining mid and late portions of 2012. Right now, it looks to me like we may see something we've never seen before - and if not in 2012 proper, the rare alignment of a lunar dragon year and a significant panda anniversary decade will be seen as the important demarcation that separates the golden age of modern Chinese coins from the ensuing 60 years.

We're making history here, us early investors in Chinese coins. We are preserving (and conserving!) some of the most important relics that will be venerated by the generations of collectors and investors that follow us. If you're the type of person that passes on wealth to his heirs, you're in the right place at the right time. The 2012 dividing line isn't a physical barrier. There will be some "slosh" back and forth prior to, and after 2012, that won't matter very much 60 years later. So, 2012 is a convenient marker that also corresponds with the most important simultaneous Chinese numismatic events of this half of the current century, but it's not a cutoff point for collectors and investors.

2012 and earlier may be seen as a mythical golden age in the future, but it is only granted such status by something much larger that comes after it. In other words, the wealth and power of the year 2072 will be chasing the coins of 2012 and earlier, and it will dwarf anything we can imagine today.

For the long term investor in these pre-2012 coins: We welcome your family to the aristocracy.