I have seen the same prints that you sell at much higher prices. What’s wrong with yours?
Nothing! If you search the Internet you will find many websites offering coats of arms. There are only 3 companies in the world undertaking heraldic research, the other shops have purchased licences to sell the products of the research companies – afterall it takes many man-years to build up a database of coats of arms and a one-man band isn’t going to have the time to undertake the research. It follows that you will find many shops offering identical products but at wildly differing prices. We have a master licence and we have to pay the resarch company each time we print or extract a coat of arms or surname history from the database (the software will not work without a gadget that has to be attached to our computer which keeps count!). Each licencee is free to charge whatever he or she likes and we have chosen to sell at a lower price than others but which we feel is a fair price whilst at the same time allowing us a resonable profit; in fact several charge more than double what we charge for prints! We also sell to the USA and, as with many things, prices there are cheaper than in the UK. The products are identical, so don’t waste your money!
How Do You Send Digital Downloads?
We send your coat of arms in jpeg format attached to an email. You can then save it on your computer and print out as many copies as you wish. We do not supply the Surname Histories in this way as few people have a printer that will cope with A3 size copies.
Are Your Coat of Arms Authentic?
Yes, you can see a list of the documents used in the research at our bibliography page. Our collection of coats of arms has been built up over the past 35 years.
I have seen a coat of arms for my name that is different to the one you provide. Why?
Some names have more than one coat of arms. Our database holds the oldest found by our researchers.
What’s the difference between a coat of arms and a family crest?
There is no difference. Technically, the crest is the part on top of the helmet and the coat of arms is the design shown on the shield, and the whole image is called an ‘achievement’; but the terms are used by most people to mean the same thing.
Why do shields take so long to paint?
We do not make the shields, we merely pass the order on together with the coat of arms design. There are two companies worldwide that produce these shields, one takes about 3 weeks but we are not happy with the quality and no longer offer these; the other ones are lovely but take much longer!
Where does the term ‘coat of arms’ come from?
When knights went into battle or were jousting, it was difficult to know who was who under all that armour. So a decorated cloth garment known as a ‘surcoat’ was worn over the armour, hence the term ‘coat of arms’.