This coin I got from Stacks Auctions..... AV Ducato ND Rome Mint Pope Nicholas V 1447-55 He was Pope at a time when the Ottoman Turks where considered a threat to Christian Europe. In 1453, when Sultan Murad II passed/ young Mehmet II became the new Sultan. Not wasting time, he wanted to finish what his father started/ conquest of Constantinople. Once the siege got underway, Nicholas tried to drum up support for a relief force to help the Byzantines. However, it was doomed to failure, and by the time a Venetian/ Allied fleet was ready, the City fell to the Turks. Also, the "Hundred Years War" ended during his papacy. In 1452, he crowned German King, Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor. He would be the last HRE crowned in Rome.
The coin is NGC UNC/ details/ "clipped planchet" Stacks disputed this in their examination. However many medieval AV coins where clipped, even though penalties for this crime were severe. In merry England, it was charged under "Treason Act" which meant you the clipper faced the same fate as William Wallace in the movie, "Braveheart". Of course, if the coin is MS, then one may wonder if the mint coiner, may have shaved off some gold to have exact weight? I looked at this thru 20X magnification and cannot see evidence. You do not encounter many Ducatos of Nicholas V in auctions. John
That is exactly what Stacks said. I had a chance to purchase an unsold AV Louis XI Ecu d'or MS-65. Coin looked just awfull/ maybe the dies where completely worn out/ all detail was missing. CNG would have graded it Very Fine at best.
PCGS called this one "XF details, filed rims" and then NGC wouldn't grade it after I cracked it out and sent it to them. ("Ineligible type" or some stupid thing like that.) Disappointed, I sold the coin (which I loved), and then the next owner sent it back to PCGS a second time and they gave it a straight, problem-free XF45. Then, to add insult to injury, they shot an even better TrueView image than the one I got. That made me mad. So sometimes they're inconsistent, especially on hammered stuff, and it's the luck of the draw. But you knew that. I just couldn't catch a break with this one.
They should probably grade medieval coins the way NGC does ancients- that is, with a basic adjectival grade (XF, AU, MS, etc), and with added strike and surface ratings, but not the 1-70 numerical grades of the Sheldon scale.