The International Association of Amateur Heralds

Hello All,

Would love to have a little help. I am trying to get a proper blazon for the attached arms. Any ideas?



Thanks in advance!!

I will give it a shot.
Vert, a broken cog Argent, overall Argent a crab Sable

Crest: On a mural crown with three towers Or a raven Sable legged Or and holding a runestone inscribed with a haglaz Sable.

The crest is a bit strange. I don't think that any bird has yellow legs and a black beak (not that realist colours are important in heraldry) but the yellow legs with the black claws are strange.

Also, I wasn't sure how to describe the cog either, I almost described it as a St. Katharine's wheel.

Give it another shot Ryan. There is per chevron in there somewhere.

The broken wheel has most of the elements of a Catherine Wheel, but the lugs on the rim (which don't line up with the spokes incidentally) are odd. I don't think it would work as a cog-wheel as another cog-wheel couldn't mesh with it.

The bird is clearly meant to be some sort of corvid (probably a raven as you suggest Ryan), but I can't find any with yellow legs. Choughs have red legs but are much more delicate, and have quite narrow red or yellow beaks.

I do not like two kinds of Argent in the same shield.

Torsten Laneryd wrote:I do not like two kinds of Argent in the same shield.

I heartily agree. As it is painted the (Catherine) wheel would have to be blazoned gray, which begs two questions: is gray a colour or a metal? and indeed is gray a heraldic tincture at all? It is occasionally used in US military heraldry, but virtually never elsewhere.

It has been suggested that silver and white should be considered two different tinctures, in which case I suppose the wheel might be considered silver.

Silver and white are the same why should they be different ?
Grey is a sort of stain in German heraldry names Asgrau if I remember corectly.

Ton de Witte wrote: Grey is a sort of stain in German heraldry names Asgrau if I remember corectly.

I think they call it Aschfarbe and is unusual and seen nonheraldic. Only the families Aschau in Bayern and Osterhausen in Thueringen are known in Lexikon der Heraldik by Gert Oswald.

I have always referred to it as Ashengrau.

Ton de Witte wrote:Silver and white are the same why should they be different ?

They are usually considered to be the same, but we have seen examples of arms where a snow-coloured mountain-top had white snow, but other "argent" elements were depicted as silver:

http://amateurheralds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=548

1st Signals Reg't and 9th Assault Para Reg't.

Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:I have always referred to it as Ashengrau.

Yes that must be clearer to those who are in doubt what colour ashes are.

Maybe You lost a c and mean Aschengrau?