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Venezuela - Coat of Arms

From: http://movies.acmecity.com/western/191/escudo.gif

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Venezuela

The wheatsheaf in the first quarter (dexter chief) has 20 ears of wheat standing for the 20 states who made up Venezuela when the COA was designed. The scroll joining the olive and palm branches has the following texts:

19 de Abril de 1.810 20 de Febrero de 1.959
Independencia Federacion
Republica de Venezuela

From: http://homes.acmecity.com/movies/western/191/escudo.htm Located by Dov Gutterman and translated by Santiago Dotor 15 June 1999

The coat of arms is strictly regulated. It can be used only by the State authorities on their stationery. As I know it (this is an empirical account, I have not checked the law yet), the President, the Presidents ofthe Parliamentary Chambers and Chief Justice, use a multicolor coat of arms (engraved) on theirs. Ministers, Comptroller's Officer, State Defensor,General Attorney, Commanders of the Armed Forces (among others) use a golden (engraved) coat of arms on their stationery; and MP's, Ministerial directors, Heads of Departments, Presidentially Appointed Heads of Comissions and medium army officers use a white (engraved) coat of arms.Other state officers use a printed white coat of arms with a black contourtraced around its components, in flat paper. Civil Society cannot use theCoA whasoever (although it is printed on mugs, t-shirts, posters, caps,stickers and so on...). Oddly enough, I have seen a Venezuelan CoA with a Princely Crown replacing the two Cornucopias with flowers. Never in Venezuela's history we have been a monarchy or a principate. The CoA with the crown I saw was on, get this, a souvenir ashtray !!!
Guillermo Aveledo , 24 September 1999

The current Law for the National Flag, Coat of Armas and Anthem (1954; when Venezuela changed back its name form the United States of Venezuela, to the Republic of Venezuela) states (after a loose translation and some of my pointers):
"Art. 9.- The Coat of Arms of the Republic will carry on its field the colours of the national flag on its three cantons: The upper right canton will be red and it will contain the figure of a bundle of weath branches, as a symbol of the union of the Republic's States and of the wealth of the nation. The upper left canton will be yellow and, as a triumphant emblem, it will bear weapons [three spears and two swords] and two national flags, tightened by a lauril crown. The third, lower canton will be blue (and with a green bottom) and it will hold the figure of a brave and untamed horse, white, with its head turned to the right, as an emblem for Independence and Liberty.
The Coat of Arms will have as headpiece, as symbols of abundance, two down-facing cornucopias intercrossed around the middle, both filled with abundant tropical fruits. On its sides, the Coat of Arms will bear an olive branch (right side; it has been suggested lately to change this for a coffe tree branch) and a palm tree branch (left side) tied at the bottom side of the shield by a tricolour ribbon (yellow, blue and red). Inside the blue stripe of the ribbon the following captions will read: to the right, "19 DE ABRIL DE 1810","INDEPENDENCIA"; to the left "20 de febrero de 1859", "FEDERATION", and to its centre, "REPUBLICA DE VENEZUELA"."

A NOTE: As you can see, the Venezuelan CoA bears the name of "República de Venezuela" as our country has its current official denomination standing. After the vote of the referendum on Dec 15 we will see if the proposed name change for the country will get to our CoA (expectedly, in the case of a victory for the YES vote, we will change it; the proposed name is "República Bolivariana de Venezuela" after one of our founding fathers, Simon Bolivar). As a precedent, when we had our last name change (due to the deep transformation of the political structure of the State, and not because of some historical myth), back in 1953 (near the drafting of the law previously quoted), the CoAs which were bearers of the previous name (United States of Venezuela) would be equally valid in legal terms until the printed supplies of them were to run out. We asume the same would happen now.
Guillermo Aveledo , 24 November 1999

Here ia a new version of the Venezuelan CoA (right colours)
Guillermo Aveledo , 13 January 2000