I am working on designing arms and one possible charge that comes and goes in my mind is a lima bean. Using a lima bean would be a kind of double cant as "bohn" is German for bean and I was born in Lima, Ohio. I have not been able to find any example of the use of a lima bean as a charge (I’ve seen references to bean-pods, but no pictures).

It is not obvious to me what the default orientation of a lima bean would be. Are there any ideas if there should be or how it would be described?

My present inclination is to have 8 lima beans in orle surrounding a central charge

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g29/PaddyW_photos/limashield3.jpg

How about this? Argent semy of lima beans Vert a fried chicken drumstick proper in bend all within a bordure of cornbread squares Proper. Set for a crest: rising from a torse of the colors, a smoked ham hock Proper.

I think I’d best go eat dinner now.

Of course the real idea was to show you that lima beans could be used in an attractive manner. There’s an African nation that has a semy of coffee beans, why not limas?

I don’t know.  Lima beans without ketchup?  Not sure this will work…;)

But I do like your rationale for it, Jay!

This sounds original enough that you could probably do with just a semy of lima beans—and perhaps a blue-jay for a crest.

Wow Patrick, you have waaay too much time on your hands!

Jay, what a great idea! :D As for orientation, I would think that as Patrick shows them (in bend) would be default.  I don’t think they would need to be emblazoned any more specific than "a lima bean proper" or "a lima bean vert".

Take care,

Had another thought. What about a double cant: two bones in saltire betwen four lima beans?

Dohrman Byers;57420 wrote:

Had another thought. What about a double cant: two bones in saltire betwen four lima beans?

Avast there! Would I have to wear a puffy shirt?

Dohrman Byers;57411 wrote:

and perhaps a blue-jay for a crest.

That idea has been growing on me since you suggested it. I think I would want the blue jay in a rising position rather than close, perhaps from a nest. Then I could use the blue jay with a lima bean charged on its chest as a badge.

No puffy shirt, please!

A less piratical approach might be: [Pick a metal] semy of lima beans Vert on a bend [pick a colour] a bone Argent.

The Lima Bean has its origins in the Andes and mountains of Central America. It spread as a crop of the natives peoples from present day Argentina through Mexico by the seventeenth century. As a commercial crop the Lima Bean was exported in large amounts from Peru to the rest of the America’s through the port of Lima. It is quite possible that there exists examples of Spanish Colonial heraldry using the Lima Bean as a charge.

Quote:

It is quite possible that there exists examples of Spanish Colonial heraldry using the Lima Bean as a charge.

If so, it will be a rarity. "Agricultural" charges are rather rare in Iberoamerican heraldry. Probably because ennoblement was almost exclusively related with military service.

AVD;57431 wrote:

If so, it will be a rarity. "Agricultural" charges are rather rare in Iberoamerican heraldry. Probably because ennoblement was almost exclusively related with military service.

It should be noted that many early Spanish (in Iberia) arms depict cooking kettles as a sign that the noble could feed and supply a fighting force. Fruits and vegatables though rare are not unknown in Spanish heraldry.

I should mention that there are two basic types of Lima beans, the large seed variety that was developed in the Andes and is green in colour and the Sieva type (also called Butter Beans) that was developed in Central America that is buff in colour. Using these two types, you could have natural charges in Vert or in Or. In my own opinion, semey of Lima Beans would not be too effective as heraldry since the small charges would loose their shape from a distance and simply look like bloated ovals. One might consider one of these simple blazons:

Or, three lima beans two over one Vert

Or, eight lime beans in orle Vert

Argent could of course be substituted for Or but I do not think that this combination of Argent & Vert would be as attractive as Or & Vert.

If the beans represent your name as a pun, then your crest could be the Black Eagle of Saint John the Evangelist would do quite well to finish the pun on your name. Here are a few example blazons for a crest:

An eagle close Sable

If you wanted an even stronger connection to you given name of John the crest could be blazoned as:

An eagle of Saint John close

An eagle of Saint John is always depicted as Sable with the additon of a nimbus behind the head of the eagle.

*These are my personal favourites.

David Pritchard;57442 wrote:

If you wanted an even stronger connection to you given name of John

Although I realize that Jay is usually a dimunitive of John, my given name is really "Jay," just as my brother is "Jack." However, my birthday is December 27, which is the feast of St. John the Evangelist.

Hey, let’s be a bit more subtle with the cant and have the field semee of succotash…

A bit more seriously, the use of relatively humble flora for canting arms, while looking perhaps a bit odd to English-oriented eyes, was quite the rage in some areas of Germanic heraldry - c.f. the Zurich roll, replete with radishes & such, and all quite attractive!

I’ve wanted to design a coat of arms for myself for many years and when I started hanging out at the Forum a few months ago I decided that now I’m going to do it. I won’t bore you with various ideas I’ve had over the years, but I would like to share how the ideas have progressed this time around.

The first idea was fairly simple. As it involved lima beans, which I suspected would be rare as a charge—as this thread has confirmed, I thought it would be pretty safe as not duplicating any other arms out there. I thought the bloack and gold were cool colors, so Sable a cross between four lima beans Or. (The beans look like smudges because I have little - read no - artistic talent.)

http://www.bohn.org/web_arms/v1.jpg

So I thought about that for a couple weeks, but as I looked at the other members’ arms, I liked the ones that were more colorful, particularly red and blue. I was also swinging to the mythical beast idea, so I completely revised my thinking and came up with Argent on a pile per pale Gules and Azure a griffin segreant Or.

http://www.bohn.org/web_arms/v2.jpg(The shield outline doesn’t show too well.)

This version has been undergoing the refrigerator test. The pile probably extends a bit too far toward the base, and it just makes the griffin too small.

So, I wanted the griffin (larger) and I went back to the lima beans. Looking at the pictures in one of my heraldry book, I saw an example of charge in orle which I thought would be a good way to combine the two: Sable a griffin segreant surrounded by eight lima beans in orle Or.

http://www.bohn.org/web_arms/v3.jpg(This graphic uses bezants where the lima beans are supposed to be.) Thus, one of the problems with this design is that the lima beans are just going to be too small. Also, I learned from another thread that Gray’s Inn uses Sable a griffin segreant Or and I didn’t want to look like I was copying that. Deciding that the whole mythical beast idea was a bad job (and wanting brighter colors and bigger lima beans), my current thinking is

http://www.bohn.org/web_arms/v4.jpgAzure a cross Argent voided Gules between four lima beans Or (I’ve been widening the white and narrowing the red on the graphic so it doesn’t look so much like a cross Gules fibrimated Argent).

So I’m feeling pretty good about this, but the design reminds me somewaht of various nordic flags, so I looked around at it is the flag of Iceland. And worse, unlike other nordic countries which have a completely different coat of arms, Iceland’s looks the same (without the lima beans of course) although it is blazoned as a cross on a cross rather than a cross voided.

So know the question is, do the lima beans create enough of a difference, or because Iceland is a sovereign state, is anything resembling its arms a presumption? (I certainly wouldn’t like it if someone just added charges to the chief of the U.S. coat of arms.) Does it make a difference that the cross is a very commonly used charge?