www.925-1000.com

I would appreciate if someone could provide me with information about this family crest.
Some believe it to be a secretary bird with a snake in its beak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretarybird
However I believe, although the bird is looking fierce, looking at the tail and wings, it could be an ostrich. Perhaps it has no snake in its beak but a horseshoe? So far I have learned that the engravers of family crest not always exactly copy it from the original crest, which could change the expression a little.
Thanks for your cooperation.

Peter.

I think it's an ostrich holding a horseshoe. Such crest can be found in Fairbairn's book of crests but unfortunately several families have used it so I don't think it's possible to know much more without any other information about the item (initials, provenance etc.).

https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsb ... 5/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsb ... 4/mode/2up

In heraldry the blazon i.e. the description of the coat of arms is crucial and not any "original" picture of the crest so basically if the blazon reads "an ostich holding a horseshoe in the beak" the it's up to the artist and his skills to depict it. Of course it's likely that the engraver has been provided with a model picture though.

Hi Sasropakis,

Thanks for your conformation much appreciated, an ostrich it is.



Ostriches are fond of eating shiny metal objects. Or so the thinking used to go. Insignias on coats of arms reinforced this difficult-to-digest idea, as did medieval bestiaries. https://awingandaway.wordpress.com/2015 ... birth-too/

Even William Shakespeare refers to the notion in a dramatic duel scene:

… I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and
swallow my sword like a great pin…

Peter

::::: There was a smaller sub-species of Ostrich called the Arabian Ostrich that went extinct in 1966 :::::::::
:::::: I was kind of thinking the Ostrich family crest seems a bit smaller tha much larger ostriches that we are used to seeing today. :::::
:::::: Not sure when the family crest was inscribed on that piece of silver, but the ostrich does seem like the smaller sub-species of Arabian Ostrich. :::::

This is the crest of the Cooke/Coke Family, descendants of Sir Edward Coke of Norfolk. Branches of this family ended up in County Carlow, County Galway and County Sligo. Curious as to what that was inscribed .

Hi, thanks for the contribution
https://europeanheraldry.org/united-kin ... ouse-coke/
The family crest is engraved on a silver beaker, made in Schoonhoven before 1651, and bought at an UK auction, in the 20th century.

Peter.