Dragon Coin

A Dragon Coin is a type of coin only found in Super Mario World and subsequent remakes. 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, especially 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 and including the fifth, award 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 amount of Dragon Coins acquired are recorded on a menu, and if the player collects them all, the Coins transform into.

Most of the games in the Yoshi's Island series (such as Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Island DS) include Coins (both in-game and in official artwork) which have Yoshi heads shown on them rather than having the normal Mario coin design. This makes them look exactly like smaller Dragon Coins, and may suggest that all Coins found on Yoshi's Island were at least once Dragon Coins. The Coins in Yoshi's Crafted World feature a depiction of a Yoshi Egg instead, however, the larger 10 Gold Coins do depict Yoshi's head, resembling the Dragon Coins even closer.

Trivia

 * 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 getting a Star Coin is labelled as "SE_OBJ_GET_DRAGON_COIN", suggesting that they replaced Dragon Coins in the final game.