Topic: Square and 'caramel' coloured?

[keith]

Pope Salviati the first??

[Frank]

 

On the other hand I could not find a single example of the papal arms where the key handles become sword hilts. And while masons use similar symbols nothing quite like this... so it might be something close to but distinct from the Vatican. Not Swiss Guard either.

Crossed swords are symbolical in catholic church, one is spiritual carried by the church and the other temporal carried for the church.  :24:  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_power )

Is it etched or transfer decoration?

[keith]

It's transfer,some wear to the base but with  practical pieces that's not much to go on,when I first saw it I thought the crossed keys was just the name of the pub it came from,Keith.

[malwodyn]

Looking again at Keith's pictures, I can see a similarity to a basket hilt (such as you would find on a sabre or cutlass), but I'm pretty sure that these are just highly ornamental keys.  Swords in heraldry are often very simple, with just a bar as a guard; that means of course that they can be shown point down, and looking like a cross. (Think knights on a crusade.....)  The crossed keys are, of course, the keys to the gates of Heaven, and sometimes indicate that in earlier times a hostelry had a religious association.  The use of the papal tiara would seem to indicate a continental rather than English origin.  The empty cartouche would seem to indicate that it lacks or has lost an inscription.  This is proving to be a real puzzle!

[Frank]

Time line is probably 30s-70s. There is also a cross, Maltese? perhaps on ribbon... knights templar? Were negative towards the Tiara and perhaps this is related to this design... back to masons perhaps. I give up.