Dinar Stefan Lazarević coat of arms

Stefan Lazarević received the title of despot from the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II in 1402 — the same year he formally transferred Serbian vassalage from the Ottomans to Hungary following the Battle of Ankara, where Timur's destruction of Bayezid I's army briefly reopened political options across the Balkans. The coat of arms on this issue reflects that new dynastic positioning, aligning Serbia visually with Western heraldic convention at a moment when Stefan was navigating between two empires simultaneously.

At roughly 0.4 g, these dinars circulated as fractional silver in a monetized economy still functioning despite decades of Ottoman pressure on Serbian mining revenues — the Novo Brdo silver mines remained productive well into his reign.