Actually I did not have the port Or in my original proposal but it seems to be a fine way to add one more bit of symbolism as well as tie all of the golden charges together in a vertical path leading to the All Seeing Eye of God. Additionally there are now four golden charges that could represent the four directions of the compass, again leading to the All Seeing Eye of God en soleil which could represent the rising Sun in the East.

Okay…My opinion may not be worth much, but you asked, so that’s what you’ll get.  My favorite shields are these three:

Hall/Perdue;44172 wrote:

[ATTACH]204[/ATTACH]

Trent;44440 wrote:

a href=http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=masons3uf5.gif class=bbcode_urlhttp://img171.imageshack.us/img171/394/masons3uf5.th.gif/a/blockquotethe right onePatrick Williams44914 wrote:blockquotea href=http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/rbcswanse.jpghttp://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/rbcswanse.jpg/a/blockquoteAs for crests, my picks are as follows:Patrick Williams44359 wrote:blockquoteimg]http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/rbcmcmilsmall.jpg

PBlanton;44347 wrote:

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e221/pblanton/belltower.jpg

Anyway….those are my picks.

Good luck,

David Pritchard;44932 wrote:

Actually I did not have the port Or in my original proposal but it seems to be a fine way to add one more bit of symbolism as well as tie all of the golden charges together in a vertical path leading to the All Seeing Eye of God. Additionally there are now four golden charges that could represent the four directions of the compass, again leading to the All Seeing Eye of God en soleil which could represent the rising Sun in the East.

Oh, yes! I see what you mean ... very nice, indeed. And thanks for the blazoning assist ... the All Seeing Eye of God en soliel. I had wondered how that would be appropriately blazoned.

Jonathan R. Baker;44935 wrote:

Okay…My opinion may not be worth much, but you asked, so that’s what you’ll get.  Anyway….those are my picks.

Good luck,

Jonathan, please do not discount your input. You may be a newbie, but sometimes the eyesight of the oldbies becomes jaded by convention and we may miss a great one because it just doesn’t quite ‘fit’. I appreciate your opinion (and I like Eric’s version, too!).

One of my lodge brothers has instructed me to stop being such a large wally. The eye in the triangle is back. See David’s crest idea above.

Patrick Williams;44453 wrote:

Here are some more given "The Treatment". I don’t have a suitable graphic of a helm in profile yet, so forgive the fabled Blue Badger sitting crosswise.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/rbcmixed.jpg

I like the second and third in this pic (not the first one).

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/rbcmcmilsmall.jpg

I also like this version.

I really like any of the badger, or tower crests that have been given.

In a side note, I don’t like any of the one’s with the masonry in chief and the tree roots in base. They are not visually pleasing to me at all, and they seem too cluttered to me. They are oozing with cleverness, but aesthetically lacking, IMO.  (of course you could always get Alex Kurov to emblazon them, which increases the aesthetics exponentially).

One idea that I have just thought of.. is to combine the tower and badger crests, and still look good. Why not have the top half of the badger coming out from behind a wall, holding the eye?

(i.e. the crest from the bottom up would be a small masoned wall, and aabove that a badger holding an eye, or compass)

Here’s a link to 3 mock-ups showing crests: the Badger Proper with All-Seeing Eye en soliel (henceforth ASE), the Azure Tower masoned Argent (and shortened a little ) with ASE and the fabled blue badger (or Badger improper) with ASE.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/test.jpg

note: the shield was thrown in there so you could see them en suite. This does not indicate that a particular shield design has been chosen or is preferred.

Linusboarder;44973 wrote:

One idea that I have just thought of.. is to combine the tower and badger crests, and still look good. Why not have the top half of the badger coming out from behind a wall, holding the eye?

(i.e. the crest from the bottom up would be a small masoned wall, and aabove that a badger holding an eye, or compass)

Colin, that sounds very much like a demibadger rampant issuing from a mural crown.

Patrick Williams;44975 wrote:

Colin, that sounds very much like a demibadger rampant issuing from a mural crown.

The middle one, Patrick.

Dave

Friends:

At a stated communication of Racine-Belle City Lodge #18 F&AM Wisconsin on the evening of Tuesday, June 5th 2007, the members present voted to assume the following coat of arms -

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/test-1.jpg

Now to blazon this baby: Azure between bars gemel wavy Argent in chief upon a wall masoned throughout of the second a Mason’s square per chevron reversed and in base the roots of a tree both Or. Set for a crest and rising from a torse of the colors: issuant from the top of a tower Azure masoned Argent ported Or an All-seeing Eye of God within an equilateral triangle en soleil of the second.

One I get the blazon set, I’m off to USHR for registration.

Many thanks to you all and especially to Michael Swanson for his lovely shield and David Pritchard for the impressive crest design.

Congrats, Patrick.  They have selected a very nice design!  :D

Take care,

Nice arms.  A few random thoughts—

arms of fraternal organizations & other groups, if reasonably well designed, are a great way to spread interest in & appreciation for heraldry.  There are more members in a lodge than in most families, and most of the lodge members will have families of their own.

Wth luck some of the lodge members & their families may be inspired to look into designing & assuming their own personal or family arms.

if there is any degree of interest shown by other lodges in your vicinity, you have a nice collection of other designs to offer, either as is or as inspiration for the others to work with.

With luck, your role in designing the new lodge arms will inspire others to consult you & thus avoid some of the less desirable aspects of some assumed arms.  You could as part of your consultation refer them to the AHS Best Practices & in the hopefuly near future, to an AHS guide to designing new arms when we get around to compiling it!).

Michael, you are more right than you know. The Lodge is already buzzing with talk of what they can do with arms and I’ve had more than one conversation with younger members who wanted to tattoo the design upon themselves (I will shortly be working with them on the designs of their personal arms). I think that once other Lodges in our area begin to receive letters from us on our own heraldic stationery that questions will begin to come in about our coat of arms, etc.

Yesterday I took the design by the workplace of one of our members who had been unable to attend Tuesday evening but wanted to see the arms asap. Another older member of the lodge was there, one who has not attended for a while and knew nothing of our drive to become armigerous. He looked at the achievement, pointed to the shield and said, "Root River masons?" Can’t get better than that, now can it?