You Just Never Know Where You Might See Heraldry

So my wife and I went to a small antiques show/fair a couple of weeks ago, mostly because a friend of hers had a booth there, as well as because you never know, we might find something that we just can't live without.

It shouldn't have been surprising, because as I've said many times before, "you can find heraldry everywhere!", but there we were, and there it was -- heraldry!

In this specific instance, one dealer had a pair of cast metal bookends (I'm not showing you the whole picture, as he requested that I not upload the pictures I took of them to the internet, and I promised that I wouldn't, so you're just seeing the details here) with the seal of the University of Pennsylvania on them.

At the base of the seal on each of the bookends was the arms of the original Proprietor of Pennsylvania, William Penn, Argent on a fess sable three plates.

Yes, the bookends are heraldic; no, I didn't buy them. (The price was a little steep for my current budget, I have no personal relationship to the University, and I'd have to try to find a place in the house to put them. Plus, for some reason I no longer feel the need to buy every item I see that has heraldry on it. So, yeah, I took a couple of photographs of them and then left them there.)

The coat of arms on the bookends is not the one that the University currently uses, though as you can see from the image below, the arms they use are clearly related to/based on Penn's arms (with elements from Benjamin Franklin's arms on the chief).

All in all, a fun little bit of heraldic serendipity as part of a pleasant morning getting out of the house with my wife!

An Heraldic Mystery - Unsolved

Well, maybe solved, but only in part.

I was approached (electronically) a little while ago by reporter Emily Balser with a question she had about this bit of heraldry in New Kensington, Pennsylvania:

She'd seen an earlier post I'd done on this blog about another Art Deco-style depiction of the arms of the United States on a Post Office building in High Point, North Carolina (http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2011/07/heraldry-in-high-point-north-carolina.html) and had some questions and wanted my thoughts about the one in New Kensington for an article she was writing for the Valley News Dispatch in western Pennsylvania.

She emailed me just before we left to attend the XXXI International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Oslo (heraldry pictures of the trip, which included a week in England following the Congress, will be forthcoming), and I haven't had the time to read her article or post about it until now.

Anyway, if you'd like to learn more about what little history is known about this work of heraldic art, or are interested in what several people - including me - had to say about it, Emily's article can be found on-line at http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourallekiskivalley/yourallekiskivalleymore/6532276-74/eagle-seal-office#axzz3AU3z58ln

As my alter ego Da'ud Bob ibn Briggs, Historical Drive-In Movie Critic, would say, "Check it out!"

Once Again …

…. proof that you can find heraldry everywhere.

Reader and correspondent Jon von Briesen shared the following with me, and is graciously allowing me to share it with all of you.

“Snapped this cell phone pic, as we were about to depart from a hospital in so. Jersey. We had just dropped off a patient.

“PennStar is a helicopter operating in our region and, I think, owned by U of Pennsylvania Hospitals.  You can see the arms of U Penn on the side, and belly, of the aircraft.

“The three plates on chevron azure allude to the three plates on a fess sable, in the arms of Wm. Penn.”

You just never know where you are going to see another coat of arms!  Thank you for sharing this, Jon!

Heraldry in the News!

A September 8, 2012 article on the website of the newspaper the Reading Eagle of Reading, Pennsylvania, takes a look at, as the title notes, the "Municipal logos, seals and coats of arms in Berks County: Plain or fancy, all speak to something unique."

It's a nice, albeit brief, review of the logos -- heraldic and otherwise -- of some of the cities and towns in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with photographs of some of them, including this one, which describes the various parts of the achievement of arms of the City of Reading.

A lot of time and space (and pictures) of the article is spent on the symbol of the Township of Cumru, which has, of course, adopted the premier emblem of its namesake, Cymru (Wales), the dragon passant gules from the Welsh flag.  The township uses the dragon everywhere as part of its  branding; township staff often joke that if something moves, they'll slap a red dragon on it!

In any case, all in all it's a decent article about the heraldry (and other symbols) used in a county in Pennsylvania.  You can read the full article on-line at: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=413033