That site says this coin was put into "circulation" in 1997. So I would say it was a circulated coin and not only for collectors. I have looked at several other sites and there is no known mintage. Sorry, but at least that maybe gives you some answers.
This is purely speclative, but look at the number of people that want to swap the coin. To me that shows it circulated in fairly large numbers. NCLT coins you generally have to seek out and specifically aquire, and thus not a lot of them for trade. To me it looks like a lot of folks with duplicates they got in world coins lots sold by weight.
