FRANCE / CAPETIANS - FRANCE / ROYAL François I (1515-1547). Half-crowned Or with a cross ND (1545-1547), B, Rouen. Av. FRANCISCVS: DEI: GRA: FRANCORV (different) REX. Crowned shield of France, below a sun (workshop). Rv. + XPS: VINCIT. XPS: REGNAT: XPS (different) IMPERA. Bored plain cross within leafy polylobe. Dy.890 - Sb.4880 - G.309 (R5) - Fr.352 ; Gold - 1,64 g - 19 mm - 1 h Top Pop: the most beautiful graded specimen! PCGS AU55 (55936890). With the oliphant of the master Côme du Moustier: this different is unprecedented for this type! Barely treflé strike, with a flan chip at 7 o'clock. Fields slightly rubbed. Very rare. TTB. The register Z1B/968 of the National Archives includes the silver strikes under François Ier in the direction of reading, and the gold strikes by taking the register upside down, by the end. Master Guillaume de Houppeville made gold shields until 24 July 1545 for his last issue. The new Master, Cosme du Moustier, arrived in September 1545, and his first issue of gold shields was on 24 October 1545 (600 examples), then in 1546 (2,000 examples). In 1547, two productions were recorded on 21 July and 8 October with 500 examples (expressed in ecus!) but the box contained [2 ½] ecus and again on 20 January 1548 and (n. st.) and 2 June 1548 for 700 ecus (expressed in ecus!) but the box contained [3 ½] ecus: it was during these productions of 1547 and the very beginning of 1548 that half-ecus were minted with a different sound.