Heraldic fraud

Heraldic fraud may mean either to falsely claim the right to a coat of arms (or other component of heraldic display) for oneself, or to falsely assert that someone else has that right in order to sell heraldic art to them. Both can be seen as a kind of fraud and an infringement of intellectual property rights.

According to the law of arms in most heraldic jurisdictions, usage of a pre-existing coat of arms must be predicated on some form of family relationship. Typically, inheritance of arms flows through the male line, though in many traditions it may flow through the female line as well.

A typical piece of "bucket shop" heraldic artwork, which would be referred to as the "Morris family crest"

The term "bucket shop" is sometimes used to refer to a company that will sell a coat of arms (often referred to by the misnomer "family crest") associated with the customer's surname, regardless of whether or not the customer can actually claim a relation to the original armiger.^[1]^[2] Bucket shops may work from a database of surnames and shields sourced from manuscripts, armorials, and various journals.^{[citation needed]} A common indicator of "bucket shop" arms is the display of the surname within what should be the motto scroll.

References[]

^ Justice of the Peace & Local Government Law. Justice of the Peace. 1997. Retrieved 24 August 2012.
^ Lynch-Robinson, Sir Christopher Henry (Bart.); Lynch-Robinson, Adrian (1967). Intelligible Heraldry: the application of a mediaeval system of record and identification to modern needs. Heraldic Book Co. p. 119. Retrieved 24 August 2012.

Heraldic fraud

See also[]

References[]

Further reading[]