Silver Wax Seal or Stamp (SKULL)

[Portsbruff]

Silver with 2 Emeralds as eyes inset into Skull

Stamp is in a shape of a ARM with a hand holding a KNIFE name is (DEELISH).

I think its a old American IRA Stamp but i could be wrong.

Got it from Ebay 4 years ago. Just like to know the History about it

 

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[RTR]

Red Emeralds ? If so their Very rare
>> https://geology.com/gemstones/red-beryl/

 

[Red-Coat]

Welcome to Tnet

If you look carefully it’s not a knife, but a broken sword. That has several associations as a heraldic charge… notably for the “Chute” family, but traditionally with the arm cut off at the wrist. Here, it’s “embowed” (issuing from the shoulder, with the elbow bent). It’s also “vambraced” (clad in riveted armour). In that form it has particular association to Sir Henry Gwillim of Gloucestershire (1760-1837):



There have been other users and later borrowers (such as generic imagery on pseudo-livery buttons). I know of no connection to the name “Deelish” (which is also a townland in County Cork) nor any connection to the IRA.

The odd thing is that the engraving on the stamp reads the correct way round, which means that anything impressed with it would be the wrong way round as a mirror image. Not what you would want from a seal stamp.

I think this is a modern fantasy of some kind, isn’t very old and the insets for the eyes will likely be red glass. I have seen a number of seal stamps with a skull ‘handle’ inset with red glass eyes but they were all relatively modern items and with the seal impression itself also as either a skull or a skull and crossbones. Maybe someone has ground down one of those and added their own design or it has come from a company that offers custom impressions (but the latter wouldn't explain why its back to front)?

 

[Red-Coat]

Just looking again at your pictures. They're not great quality nor very large, but zooming in... is there some kind of maker mark on the top of the skull or is that just a dent in the metal? There's a suggestion of what might be a letter 'T':

 

[Spats]

For what it's worth, the arm with sword looks amazingly similar to the arm on Civil War era Massachusetts militia buttons.

 

[Red-Coat]

For what it's worth, the arm with sword looks amazingly similar to the arm on Civil War era Massachusetts militia buttons.

Indeed it does, but their emblem wasn't a broken sword. If you widen the search to unbroken swords wielded by embowed and vambraced arms there are many more possibilities since that heraldic charge had much wider usage. Not so much for the broken sword, which this one very clearly is.

 

[Plug N Play]

Welcome to Tnet

The odd thing is that the engraving on the stamp reads the correct way round, which means that anything impressed with it would be the wrong way round as a mirror image. Not what you would want from a seal stamp

They oriented the writing by flipping the picture or looking in a mirror ? Note the background.

 

[Red-Coat]

They oriented the writing by flipping the picture or looking in a mirror ? Note the background.

Well spotted... it would have helped if 'Portsbruff' had told us that.

 

[Portsbruff]

Sorry the stamp was back to front so i reverted it in the picture so you could read it. Sorry i should of told you. Thanks for you info the pictures are from my lap top the light was shining above me so had light reflection on top of the skull. Steve

 

[Portsbruff]

Sorry the stamp was back to front so i reverted it in the picture so you could read it. Sorry i should of told you. Thanks for you info the pictures are from my lap top the light was shining above me so had light reflection on top of the skull. Steve