Madalch;63448 wrote:

Or a silver eagle may have tarnished and turned black.

Quite right Darren, the small copper component of the silver alloy in the foil or leaf used to illustrate the arms in the original granting document could have oxidised as a reaction to sulfur in the air causing the silver to darken or tarnish, forever confusing the towns people.

I think France needs an intervention, ASAP!:p

David Pritchard;63452 wrote:

Quite right Darren, the small copper component of the silver alloy in the foil or leaf used to illustrate the arms in the original granting document could have oxidised as a reaction to sulfur in the air causing the silver to darken or tarnish, forever confusing the townspeople abouif the populace of the town was perpetually illiterate).

I wouldn’t use the term "perpetually illiterate", but I’ve seen a number of Canadian cities portray their arms incorrectly, despite the literacy of the people working for the city.  If the most prominent depiction of the coat of arms changed colour over the years, it wouldn’t surprise me if the populace and politicians thought that the altered colours were the correct ones.

Madalch;63457 wrote:

I wouldn’t use the term "perpetually illiterate", but I’ve seen a number of Canadian cities portray their arms incorrectly, despite the literacy of the people working for the city.  If the most prominent depiction of the coat of arms changed colour over the years, it wouldn’t surprise me if the populace and politicians thought that the altered colours were the correct ones.

The post that you quoted above was a draft partial post that was later edited, spell checked and expanded. How this unfinished comment was posted, as opposed to the intended post, is a (computer) mystery to me.

Perhaps for "perpetually," read "heraldically."

On the arms, I don’t think (or at least I haven’t heard) that the Basque Provinces have any heraldic authority that approves municipal arms, as do some of Spain’s autonomous regions.  Depending on when these arms were adopted, the tincture violation could therefore simply be a matter of (to coin a phrase) heraldic illiteracy.

Maybe the town fathers decided Sable was a fur?  (oh, that doesn’t work in Spanish, does it?)

Actually I suspect that both theories were correct—the arms were originally En campo de blanco una aguila de plata (White an eagle Argent).  Then over time the white painted field aged to blue & the embroidered eagle tarnished to black.  After all, IIRC the Spanish are (were?) about the only tradition that (sometimes) treated white as a color and argent as a metal, on the same shield, no es verdad?

Hey, I’m just looking for middle ground here, what with the elections and all..

Michael F. McCartney;63482 wrote:

After all, IIRC the Spanish are (were?) about the only tradition that (sometimes) treated white as a color and argent as a metal, on the same shield, no es verdad?

So it has been written, but I’ve seen Spanish heraldists deny it.  Who knows?

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Saint-Thierry, France

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Vignacourt, France

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Le Pâquier in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland.  Wikimedia has done quite a bit of work rendering the arms of French municipalities, and it appears that they’ve begun adding Swiss arms now as well.

Charles Glass;62096 wrote:

de Martainneville Family Arms

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99% of the time, violations to the rule of tincture look down right bad, especially when it’s a charge violation.  The exception is red and black in my opinion, lets face it, it just looks cool .

Charles Glass;80390 wrote:

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Le Pâquier in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland.  Wikimedia has done quite a bit of work rendering the arms of French municipalities, and it appears that they’ve begun adding Swiss arms now as well.

The mound vert is seen regularly in the heraldry of the countries that constituted the Kingdom of Hungary: Slovakia, Croatia, Transylvania and of course, reduced modern day Hungary. Both Swiss heraldry and Hungarian heraldry have their origins in Germanic heraldry but perhaps the roots of these particular arms have an origin in the tens of thousands of official burgher arms granted by the French Juges d’Armes in the 17th century in which colour violations were fairly common and the clover was a common charge.

Remember that divisions of the field are not bound by the rule of tinctures, at least according to Boutell’s and Fox-Davies.  That being said, my own taste tends towards dividing the field according to the rules of tincture.

David Pritchard;63444 wrote:

Though I do not know the exact answer, I would venture to say that the bicephalus eagle represents the Spanish Hapsburgs (Holy Roman Emperors). If the coat-of-arms were created around the Spanish Civil War or later, the eagle would have one head and represent the Eagle of Saint John the Evangelist, the eagle favoured by the Falange Española of Generalissimo Franco.

I read the Spanish blazon and it says "an eagle", with no mentions to the double head. I’m going to tell it to its creator, who has made a lot of coat of arms in Commons.

Stephen R. Hickman;61780 wrote:

What’s next?  Argent, three snowflakes Proper?  The Tincture Rule exists for a reason.  These are textbook examples of bad heraldry!  :rolleyes:

Argent, three snowflakes proper absolutely does not violate the tincture rule.  That said, it’s obviously highly questionable as a quote.

Chuck Glass;61768 wrote:

I know there are some notable exceptions to the rule of tinctures (Albania, Jerusalem, et al) but I’ve noticed some pretty blatant violations recently such as this one for the city of Grans, France.

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Just how strictly do the various countries or heraldic authorities "enforce" this rule?

Do the gold acorns nullify the rule in the case of Modrice, Czech Republic?

 

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Other notable violations:

 

La Barben, France

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Gemenos, France

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Albocàsser, Spain

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Does anyone have blazons of these?  That would make it much clearer.