San Diego coat of arms

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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14 December 2006 17:22
 

I was trying to figure out a blazon for the coat of arms for the City of San Diego as depicted in its seal. Unfortunately, I’m stuck on the fess. I presume it’s a fess wavy, but how do you describe the verticle lines? It almost looks like a bird’s eye view of railroad tracks (and for all I know that may have been part of the symbolism). Below’s a link to site with more views as well as a picture in color.

http://www.geocities.com/songkhla.geo/sandiegoseal.html?200614

 

http://www.geocities.com/songkhla.geo/Sdseal21.gif

 

I think the blazon is:

Or, a fess wavy (??) Azure, in chief a ship in full sail Proper, in base an Orange tree Proper between two wagon wheels Proper with wings Argent.

 

Close? Close enough for government work? And anyone want to take a crack at the crest (mission bell Or?), supporters (pillars of hercules Argent?) and compartment (two dolphins facing outward with tails entwined Argent?)?

 
Daniel C. Boyer
 
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Daniel C. Boyer
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15 December 2006 16:11
 

arriano wrote:

I was trying to figure out a blazon for the coat of arms for the City of San Diego as depicted in its seal. Unfortunately, I’m stuck on the fess. I presume it’s a fess wavy, but how do you describe the verticle lines? It almost looks like a bird’s eye view of railroad tracks (and for all I know that may have been part of the symbolism). Below’s a link to site with more views as well as a picture in color.

http://www.geocities.com/songkhla.geo/sandiegoseal.html?200614

 

http://www.geocities.com/songkhla.geo/Sdseal21.gif

 

I think the blazon is:

Or, a fess wavy (??) Azure, in chief a ship in full sail Proper, in base an Orange tree Proper between two wagon wheels Proper with wings Argent.

 

Close? Close enough for government work? And anyone want to take a crack at the crest (mission bell Or?), supporters (pillars of hercules Argent?) and compartment (two dolphins facing outward with tails entwined Argent?)?


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/San_Diego_City_Seal.png

 

In the above image you certainly get a different impression—is it possible that in fact it is a fess wavy gules cotised wavy couped azure with the vertical lines hatch marks and the depiction of the whole fess with cotises azure simply a misunderstanding of what hatching is?  My other guess would be that the fess (and not the cotises) is compony but the azure pieces are certainly too thin for that.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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15 December 2006 16:20
 

According to an entry at Flags of the World, taken from the city website,

 

The official seal of the City of San Diego was adopted by the City Council on April 14, 1914, and superseded a design that had been in use since Jan. 5, 1888.
<ul class=“bbcode_list”>
<li>
Quote:

<ul class=“bbcode_list”>
<li>The pillars of Hercules are used as supporters to recall the ancient territorial jurisdiction of Spain.</li>
<li>The winged wheel represents manufacturing and transportation.</li>
<li>The two connected dolphins symbolize the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, inseparably united by the Panama Canal.</li>
<li>The motto, "Semper Vigilans," means "ever vigilant."</li>
<li>The orange tree represents agriculture</li>
<li>The Spanish caravel represents the exploration and settlement by the Spanish.</li>
<li>The blue wavy band below it represents the city’s position on the sea.</li>
<li>The mission or carmelite belfry suggests early settlement by the mission fathers.</li>
</ul>

</li>
</ul>
The highlighted words tell me the fess wavy is supposed to be blue.  I think what we have here is just amateur hatching, nothing more.

Too bad you can’t tell much more about the tinctures from this description.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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15 December 2006 17:05
 

In a picture that appears in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune you can see the arms on the wall (although not any clearer):

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061215/images/settle280.jpg

 

From other images I’ve seen, the fess is azure, nothing gules. I’ll see if I can research what the old pre-1914 arms were. In the meantime, would the blazon for the current arms be:

 

Or, a fess wavy cotised wavy Azure, in chief a Spanish caravel in full sail Proper, in base an Orange tree Proper, between two spoked, wooden wheels Proper, each with a wing facing sinister Argent

 

I’ve looked at other versions of it and they all have that wavy sideways ladder as a fess cotised wavy. I’m at a loss as to how to blazon that as I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before.

 
Daniel C. Boyer
 
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Daniel C. Boyer
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16 December 2006 13:59
 

arriano wrote:

In a picture that appears in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune you can see the arms on the wall (although not any clearer):

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061215/images/settle280.jpg

 

From other images I’ve seen, the fess is azure, nothing gules. I’ll see if I can research what the old pre-1914 arms were. In the meantime, would the blazon for the current arms be:

 

Or, a fess wavy cotised wavy Azure, in chief a Spanish caravel in full sail Proper, in base an Orange tree Proper, between two spoked, wooden wheels Proper, each with a wing facing sinister Argent

 

I’ve looked at other versions of it and they all have that wavy sideways ladder as a fess cotised wavy. I’m at a loss as to how to blazon that as I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before.


With the input from Joseph McMillan I think why it appears as a ladder is just that some ignorant artist didn’t know what hatching was, didn’t know that if it’s in colour you don’t need to hatch it, and didn’t know the hatching for azure is horizontal, not vertical, lines.  I don’t think we can do any better than this until we hear something differently.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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18 December 2006 19:41
 

Thanks both of you for your help.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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08 March 2009 17:13
 

The description of the current San Diego city seal (coat of arms) states that it was adopted by the city in 1914 and replaced an earlier coat of arms that had been in use since 1888. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a description of the earlier arms. However, recently I read something about the facade of the San Diego Museum of Art and how it included the arms of Spain, the U.S., California and the City of SD. I’d been there numerous times, but apparently never looked up. The building was built for the 1915 California-Panama Exposition and apparently word hadn’t spread yet that there was a new arms.

I’ve posted some pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36115496@N05/

 

I also thought the "arms" of California were interesting. They took the state seal, put it on a shield, and included Fr. Junipero Serra as the crest.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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10 March 2009 16:08
 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3563/3339311470_e4d040b894.jpg?v=0

I have no idea what the tinctures are….or even what the flower is in the third quarter—pointsettia?

 
David E. Cohen
 
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David E. Cohen
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11 March 2009 10:52
 

Actually, the flower looks more like some varieties of dahlia.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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21 December 2009 11:35
 

Here’s a photo of the City’s seal/coat of arms - a big painting on the floor in the entry of the City Administration Building:

http://www.sandiego.gov/directories/graphics/departmentsphoto.jpg

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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23 April 2010 11:52
 

While visiting a new water treatment plant nearing completion the other day, I discovered this lying on the ground:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4546093190_ae8e13f76f.jpg

San Diego city seal by arriano1, on Flickr

 

It’s about 3 feet in diameter.

 
Michael Y. Medvedev
 
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Michael Y. Medvedev
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24 April 2010 02:39
 

Dolphins are lovely!

 
M85324
 
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M85324
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11 November 2011 03:03
 

I think that the older version of the arms have a certain ‘gravitas’ that the newer CoA lack. A good test of civic arms should be how they appear in three dimensions ie carved. The old arms fulfil this criteria.

Questions,

 

1) are the second quarter garbs?

2) has there been a consensus that the third quarter is a dahlia, and why is

it set between pomegranates and what is the relationship between the

charges apart from pomegranates = Spain.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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12 November 2011 19:02
 

Those are definitely garbs in the second quarter. I have no idea why, as San Diego has no history as a grain or hay growing area that I’ve ever heard of. As far as the flower, I don’t know. The city’s official flower is the carnation, but that wasn’t adopted until 1964, about 50 years after the arms were put on this building, and well after the arms were originally adopted. The pomegranites may be symbolic for Spain/Grenada, as good a guess as any.

 
arriano
 
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arriano
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04 May 2015 19:00
 

I was at San Diego’s Central Library yesterday looking for some heraldry info, when one of the librarians provided me with something unexpected. An article written at the time of San Diego’s 200th anniversary (in 1969) entitled "The Heraldic Seal of the city of San Diego, California" that includes an actual blazon for the arms/seal. The true tinctures and metals are slightly different than the city often depicts the seal. So here’s the actual blazon:

Shield: or, a fess wavy azure, in chief a Spanish caravel in full sale gules, pennons and flag of the same, in base an orange tree proper fruited and eradicated, between two winged wheels of the third.

 

Crest: A Carmelite Belfry azure, having hung therin a bell or

 

Supporters: The pillars of Hercules azure, entwined with ribands or, standing upon two dolphins vere, with eyes, fins and tail gules, their tails linked together or, beneath the shield

 

Motto: Semper Vigilans

 

The second part of the blazon for the supporters should be listed as a compartment. I’ve attached a version of the seal on how it should look