Silver Ounce Bar 2025 Year of the Snake, Coin from Switzerland - detailed information

In Switzerland, apart from the government-owned Swissmint, there are also some private mints producing bullion which is not legal tender and is targeted at investors and not at coin collectors, such as this one-ounce silver piece.

This one-ounce silver bar dedicated to the 2025 Chinese Lunar Year of the Snake is the second in a PAMP series of minted bullion bars which tells the stories of the 12 animals of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is called Lunar Legends - White Snake.

After a thousand years of Taoist training, the white snake Bai Suzhen was granted the power to become a human woman. She then searched for Xu Xian to repay him for his bravery that saved her in a past life. They soon fell in love and married. But the monk Fahai discovered her identity and convinced Xu Xian to trick his wife into revealing her true form, and he died of shock. Desperate, Bai Suzhen stole an immortal herb from Heaven and revived him. Fahai found the couple and imprisoned Bai Suzhen in a fortress pagoda where she gave birth to a son. Once grown, he freed his mother, and the family was happily reunited.

The Lunar New Year begins with the first sighting of the new moon, the sign of auspicious beginnings. In this design, each of the twelve animals of the lunar cycle is depicted as a large star encircling the moon. Throughout the day, a two-hour window of potency is allotted to each animal, and the snake, which places sixth clockwise, is at its most powerful between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. Its zenith is marked with Chinese characters that translate as 10 a.m.