Coat of Arms and Fraud?

Question

If the rules of heraldry make it so few living persons can have a valid Coat of Arms, knowing that a shared surname with historical persons whom were the legitimate owners of these Coat of Arms is invalid for verifying rightful ownership of these CoAs, do any legal issues surround the selling of products featuring presumably false CoAs?

Could selling apparently fake CoAs somehow constitute fraud; should it?

Answer 1

Probably, but who will persue it in the courts?

Answer 2

It is false but not illegal.

It is like selling "Regimental" ties to those who haven't served. Land's End does it all the time. There are hundreds of Americans walking around with ties telling the world they were in the Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons or the 3rd Lancashire Foot, when they were not.

Yes it is fraud but it is a mild kind. There are people walking around with NY Yankee sweatshirts, caps and tee-shirts who never played, too. One could argue that the ties and the C-of-A were the same idea; admiration, not a claim.

Answer 3

Often times they will have a small disclaimer in fine print.  House of Names has one:  "We encourage you to study the _______________ genealogy to find out if you descend from someone who bore a particular family crest. . . . . . . . . No families, not even royal houses, can make sound claim to the right to bear arms unless a proven connection is established through attested genealogical records."

The problem with these sites is there might be several men with the same surname that have are entitled to their own coat of arms, all different.  Only the oldest son is entitled to his father's when he died.  However, he must apply to the college of arms. All the other sons obtained one with some differences.    Then there might have been more than one man with the same surname, not all necessarily related, that were each granted their own coat of arms.  The peddlers that sell them on the internet, in shopping malls, at airports, in magazines and solicit by mail will not have all of them. They don't need to in order to sell to the gullible.  House of Names will have more than one if more than one man with the same surname from different national origins were granted one. Then they will have one of each and there might have been more.  

Myself, I wonder, if some of the vendors in shopping malls, etc. themselves, really understand the rules of heraldry.  I wonder if they just bought into a business that they thought would be nice.  

See my link below from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U.S., The National Genealogical Society.