Across the top lettering, it reads "YEAR OF THE SHEEP · 2015" plus details of the mass and metal content of the coin.

[6] Wuon-Gean explains on the Royal Mint's site that "the reverse design is a picture of a very happy, bounding dog that is jumping for joy!

This dog is a mix between a West-Highland white Terrier and a Jack Russell – it’s really wirey and really energetic; he also looks like he’s smiling because his mouth is slightly open and it seems like he’s leaping across the waves.

The signature is in the foreground of the landscape and it’s looks like a little shell on a beach – it’s just a motif that says “Wuon-Gean” in very old characters, at the front of the coin."

The design by Harry Brockway represents these traits and the cultural traditions behind the lunar calendar, and shows a female pig (or sow) suckling five piglets.

Each coin features the traditional Chinese symbol for ‘pig’ appears below the sow's head (豬).

Lynch adds: “As well as the twisting body, I was able to have fun with the rat’s long curvy tail, which weaves its way around the composition through the flowers.

I wanted them to look like continental plates on a globe that might belong together.” The Chinese character for rat (鼠) is displayed near the coin's centre.

Harry Brockway on the Royal Mint site[10] is quoted as saying: “It was important to give an Eastern feel to the design, yet with a ‘British twist".

Designed by Chris Costello, it shows a coiled adder on grass and the Chinese character 蛇 (shé) for "snake".