TINCTURES

Tincture is considered to encompass COLOURS, METALS and FURS. In colored displays of arms, tincture is fairly self-evident. However, in black and white representations of arms (such as most bookplates), the tincture of the various aspects must be represented through hatching (i.e., patterns of lines and dots). These hatching patterns are shown below.

COLOURS:

In general practice, there are relatively few colours, and only eight are usually seen. Even then, some of these are rare. Here are the eight colours, the real color, its description and its black and white representation:

REAL COLOR
DESCRIPTION	Sable = Black	Azure = Blue	Vert or Sinople=Green	Gules = Red
BLACK AND WHITE

REAL COLOR
DESCRIPTION	Purpure=Purple	Tenné=Orange	Murrey=Maroon	Sanguine= Blood red
BLACK AND WHITE

METALS:

The two metals are:

REAL COLOR
DESCRIPTION	OR = Gold / yellow	ARGENT= silver
BLACK AND WHITE

FURS:

There are three kinds of furs: ermine, vair, potent

Of the various tinctures, the fur vair requires some additional description. Vair is traditionally argent and azure (i.e., silver and blue). If no colors are mentioned in the blazoning, it is assumed to be done with those traditional tinctures. When the pattern appears in other tinctures, it is said to be vairy. For example, if the patterns shown are dots and vertical stripes, the object so drawn is blazoned vairy or and gules.

It is traditional in heraldry that the design should always be such that color is not laid upon color, nor metal upon metal. While this rule is not universally adhered to, it is generally the case that a shield will have either metal charges upon a colored background, or colored charges upon a metal background.

a) Varieties of Ermine:

ERMINE white fur with black ermine-tails, usually represented as vertical arrowheaded lines (similar to thise used for trees on some maps) surmounted by three spots, thus:4 

DESCRIPTION	ERMINES (Black fur, white tails)	ERMINOIS (Gold fur, white tails)	PEAN (Black fur, gold tails)	ERMINITES (White fur, black tails with red spots)
REAL COLOR
BLACK AND WHITE

b) Varieties of Vair:

VAIR is an arrangement of bell-like shapes, derived from the sewing of squirrel skins onto a shield.Because of the colour of squrrel fur, this is always represented as a blue and white pattern. There are numerous varieties of Vair, most of which are rarely seen. These include three sized,

DESCRIPTION	VAIR	COUNTER-VAIR	VAIR IN PALE	VAIR EN POINTE	ALTERNATE VAIR
REAL COLOR
BLACK AND WHITE

Also, very rarely VAIRE OF FOUR occurs, with the pattern being not white and blue, but white, black yellow and red.   Other (very rare) variations (no pun intended) include PLUMETE (i.e., covered with feathers) and PAPELONNE (covered with fish-scales).

c) Varieties of Potent:

These follow the same rules as Vair and Counter-vair as to the displacement of the shapes and colours, but instead of being comprised of bell-shapes, it is composed of blocks shaped like a letter T.

DESCRIPTION	POTENT	COUNTER-POTENT
REAL COLOR
BLACK AND WHITE