eBay

jessistucke0 · ‎04-17-2018

I found this box locally and discovered an interesting insignia inside it. it appears to be the Trump Coat of Arms, but i have no idea if it would be worth anything. if you have any idea if it is valuable or not, please let me know 🙂 i would be very grateful. i have a few other pictures of the outside if they would help.

maxine*j · ‎04-17-2018

It's just an empty box that held some souvenir whatnot from Mar-a-Lago. I can't imagine it has much value. You might get a kick out of this piece from the Telegraph. (And, by the way, there is no such thing as a "family" coat of arms, so Mr. Joseph Tydings is a bit out of line, as well.

Telegraph News

Donald Trump using family crest granted to Mar-a-Lago's original owners as his own - with the word 'integrity' replaced by 'Trump'

Harriet Alexander, New York
30 May 2017 • 9:58pm

Donald Trump is using an 80-year-old family crest granted to the original owners of the Mar-a-Lago estate as his own, despite being banned from using it in the UK by the coat-of-arms authority in Scotland.

Joseph Tydings, 89, whose grandfather Joseph Davies registered the crest in 1939, said the family was furious when it found out that Mr Trump was using their heraldry.

The president continues to use the crest in the US, with the word “Integrity” replaced with the word “Trump”. He is banned from using it in Britain, owing to the Lyon King of Arms Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament in 1672. In 2007 Mr Trump went to court to be able to use the heraldry, but lost the case in 2012. He does, however, use the crest in the US, which has less strict laws about heraldry. It now adorns all his golf courses and merchandising.

“There are members of the family who wanted to sue him,” said Mr Tydings, a lawyer and former Democrat senator for Maryland, who wears his family’s coat of arms on a ring.

“I just told the other members of my family that you can’t win on this. You’ll borrow for two generations to sue him.

“I know Trump very well. I knew him and the way he operates. And the way he operates, you don’t sue Trump, because you’ll be in court for years and years and years.”

His grandfather, he added, “would be rolling over in his grave to think he was using his crest.”

Mr Tydings’ grandfather was the third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the socialite who built the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that Mr Trump now owns bought and turned into a resort. When Mr Trump bought the property, he also assumed use of the crest.

“It couldn’t be a clearer-cut case, actually,” said Clive Cheesman, one of the College of Arms’ heralds - who oversee coats of arms, their design and their use.

He told The New York Times: “A coat of arms that was originally granted to Joseph Edward Davies in 1939 by the English heraldic authority ended up being used 10 or 15 years ago by the Trump Organization as part of its branding for its golf clubs. This got them into difficulty.”

By 2012, when the golf course in Aberdeenshire opened, a new coat of arms had appeared. The same one is used at Mr Trump’s course at Turnberry, Ayrshire, which he bought in 2014. That year, Mr Trump trademarked the redesigned emblem.

The Trump Organization has not responded to The Telegraph's request for comment.

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sonomabarn67 · ‎04-18-2018

Now that the president's legal beagle fixer Cohen has had his wings clipped, I'm sure this coat-of-arms debacle will resurface and rise to the top of Trump's woes.

As far as value of the box, I'm sure there is a morbid curiousity which might elevate it beyond a typical recycling related demise like say, an empty corn flakes box, and someone might just bid on it..

gone_4_good · ‎04-18-2018

Donald Trump using family crest granted to Mar-a-Lago's original owners as his own - with the word 'integrity' replaced by 'Trump'

omg im dying bahahahaha

maxine*j · ‎04-18-2018

And Mr. Trump added the copyright symbol.

Everything else aside, Mr Joseph Tydings is unlikely to have the right to use it, either; certainly, he has no right to use it exactly as it is.

Despite the huge business in "Your Family Coat of Arms" merchandise, coats of arms were and are granted to individuals, not to families. There is no such thing as The Whatnot Family Coat of Arms. There may have been one or more people surnamed Whatnot who were granted coats of arms by heraldic authorities, but only those specific Whatnots and their male (in most cases) descendants (in an uninterrupted line) may legitimately use them. And the various Whatnot coats of arms will be different, one from another. There are no generic or surname coats of arms.

Of course, in America, where personal coats of arms are not granted or registered, and no one gives the smallest fig about the use of coats of arms, Mr. Joseph Tydings can have fun appropriating a coat of arms from one of his own ancestors, or from anyone else in the world, or making up his own. As can Mr. Trump. (Although both can get into kerfuffles under the law in countries where there is still some protection for costs of arms as property, as Mr. Trump has.)

I'm speaking here only of the relevant heraldry of the United Kingdom, by the way; Continental heraldy I know next to nothing about.

maxine*j · ‎04-18-2018

Now that it's posted, my reply looks like a lecture, but I've run out of time to edit. Anyhow, it was just meant to add a twist of irony to this tale.

c*me*4*lefton*info · ‎04-20-2018

At this point in history the value of Trump artifacts has yet to be determined. Stolen property is not likely ever to become valuable because if discovered it is stolen, then it is returned to the legal owner (or heirs) if possible. I am not saying the box is stolen, only the insignia.

For me, the value has already been determined by the man's past actions and words. The box is likely to be as valuable or worthless as his words are. I know which of those two adjectives - valuable or worthless - that I think I would use to describe the boxes "worth." But you have to decide for yourself on this one as history will not decide (under normal circumstances) for several decades.

maxine*j · ‎04-21-2018

Yes, that's a good point, about history being the judge.

And for those who don't already know it, Mar-a-Lago has an interesting history, so far as Trump's ownership and subsequent use of it as President.

The woman who built it (Marjorie Merriweather Post, of the Post Cereals fortune), willed it to the U.S. government in 1973 to be used by Presidents for their personal R&R and for their hosting of foreign dignitaries.

The problem was that the President at the time, Nixon, didn't want to use it, nor did Ford or Carter, who followed him. The feds realized that upkeep was bank-breaking and that security was a nightmare, so they gave it back to the Post Foundation in 1981. It was put up for sale, there was no interest, it began to fall into disrepair, and its demolition was approved by the city. Eventually, Trump bought it and turned it into a private club and, as the fates would have it, eventually began to use it as Marjorie Post envisioned.

(As an aside, when Trump turned it into a private club, he gladly accepted as members Jews, African Americans, and others who were still kept out of the old PLU Palm Beach resorts.)

If you love irony, you have to love history.