Dragon Coin

A Dragon Coin is a type of coin that debut in Super Mario World. It has a picture of a Yoshi's head imprinted on it.

There are at least five Dragon Coins littered around most levels in the game (some levels, such as castles, have no Dragon Coins in the original SNES version of Super Mario World). The first four coins collected in the game results in 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 points, respectively. Collecting five of them is the equivalent of collecting 100 Gold Coins, awarding an extra life for the player. On rare occasions, one may encounter six or more Dragon Coins in a single level; in these cases, every Dragon Coin after, including the fifth, awards an extra life. In these types of levels, going through a Warp Pipe to a new area causes all remaining Dragon Coins to disappear if Mario has already collected at least five of them, making the remaining ones unobtainable. Chocolate Secret is unique, because it contains only one Dragon Coin in the SNES version of Super Mario World, for unknown reasons.

In Super Mario World's Game Boy Advance remake, Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, the number of Dragon Coins acquired is recorded on a menu, and if the player collects them all, the Coins now have Peach's face on them instead of Yoshi's.

In Game & Watch Gallery 4, getting five KOs in Boxing earns a Dragon Coin.

Super Mario World

 * Wii U Virtual Console manual description: "Collect five Dragon Coins in a course to earn an extra life."

Trivia

 * Most of the games in the Yoshi series such as Yoshi's Safari, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Island DS, and Yoshi's New Island include Coins having a Yoshi's heads shown on them rather than having the normal Mario coin design. This makes them look exactly like smaller Dragon Coins. The Coins in Yoshi's Crafted World feature a depiction of a Yoshi Egg instead; however, the larger 10-Coins do depict Yoshi's head, resembling the Dragon Coins even closer.
 * In the Nintendo Power Advance Guide, the symbol for the Dragon Coins is drawn with a three-tined fork instead of Yoshi's or Peach's likeness.
 * In New Super Mario Bros., the sound effect for obtaining a Star Coin is the Dragon Coin sound effect in Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 and is also labelled as "SE_OBJ_GET_DRAGON_COIN", suggesting that they replaced Dragon Coins in the final game.