1/2 Dinar - Durad Brankovic

Đurađ Branković ruled Serbia as despot during one of its most precarious periods, caught between an expanding Ottoman Empire and an unreliable Hungarian alliance. His coinage was minted while he was simultaneously negotiating tribute payments to Sultan Murad II and ceding the fortress of Golubac in 1427 — a concession that opened the Danube frontier and haunted Serbian defenses for decades. That a functioning silver coinage continued at all under these conditions reflects the residual productivity of the Serbian silver mines at Novo Brdo, which the Ottomans themselves prized enough to seize in 1441.