Coat of arms of Vaxholm
Vaxholm’s city arms place a silver ship and a red fortress tower on opposite sides of a wavy division in a red-and-silver shield. The city links the tower to a 16th-century seal and the ship to a 19th-century addition.
Swedish description in the Heraldica record
Kluven i röd och silver, en genom vågskura bildad stam av motsatta tinkturer, i första fältet ett från skuran framkommande skepp av silver, i andra fältet ett uppstigande rött torn.
Vaxholm City publishes its own blazon and account of the motif’s history. The automatically assembled Swedish wording in the Heraldica record is separate registry information and is kept distinct from the city’s verbal description.
Designers
- Vladimir A. Sagerlund
Registration and history
- (1690): Used as a seal as of
- 15 July 1944: Royal confirmation on
- 22 July 1988: Registered at the National Board of Patents and Registration
The city’s published blazon
Vaxholm City describes the shield as divided red and silver by a wavy line of the opposite tinctures, forming a base. In the front half, the prow of a silver ship sailing on the base emerges from the wavy line; in the rear half, a red fortress tower stands on the base. This is the city’s verbal blazon, not a description of details in a particular drawing of the arms.
The historical background to the tower and ship
The city says the arms are based in part on a 16th-century seal, which accounts for the tower motif. The ship was added in the 19th century. The city page does not date these stages more precisely, so this text uses only the centuries it gives.
Heraldic elements
The heraldic elements are identified using HERO, a heraldry ontology published through Finland's Finto service. It provides structured terminology for describing coats of arms and their components. The list describes the structure of the arms, not the symbolic meaning of its elements.
- escutcheon
- per pale
- field
- Argent
- Gules
- tower
- ship
- base wavy
- counterchanged
Sources and image rights
Heraldica / National Archives of Finland · Wikidata
Image licence: CC BY-SA 3.0
Image source and credit: National Archives of Sweden / Vladimir Sagerlund
Original image. The image has been resized and converted to WebP. The derivative retains the original image’s licence.
