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Metal with painted areas. Center area has an insignia. I have checked online at several places with no luck.

enter image description here

https://i.sstatic.net/YR0Iz.jpg

Palm sized. Gold sunburst cross 0°. Superimposed gold edged blue Maltese cross 45°. Super imposed gold edged white 8 pointed star 0°. Super imposed shield with three bumps at top and three bumps at base dark green. Shield contains: Doubled rounded cross gold centre with two fleurs gold flanking. Crowned with gold crown with club ended points.

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    Hi Suzanne and welcome. Nice description! Anything on the back?
    – AllInOne
    Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 13:24
  • 1
    I see a couple of similar pendants online, but with some differences -- the pendant is ringed, the Maltese cross is at 0º, and the white part is round and not starred. Neither one offers any explanation though. worthpoint.com/worthopedia/… and ebay.com/itm/123908145086 if you want to compare.
    – shoover
    Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 19:48
  • Didn't see anything at tioh.army.mil/Search.aspx
    – shoover
    Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 19:58
  • The cross of Lorraine? and fleur-de-lys make me think it might be French, but otherwise I have no idea. Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 20:21
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    IF the central charge were a sword, I would say it was like Jean of Arc posthumous coat of arms but with Vert and Argent instead of Azure and Gold. saint-joan-of-arc.com/coat-of-arms.htm ancient.eu/image/8662/coat-of-arms-of-joan-of-arc Would it be french? A french herald would see the closeness to Jean's arms.
    – Luiz
    Commented Sep 25, 2020 at 16:24

1 Answer 1

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Trying to find out what it is was fun, because of the unusual markings, but I found something.

Not sure I can bring much to the table yet, but maybe it will help someone else.

Because items like this can be found on Etsy and similar places as "Byzantine era pendant" or elsewhere as "Native American folk art", it may be just a piece of jewellery someone just designed as a mashup of several items.

However, the items on the crest are interesting:

  • Crown depicted most closely resembles St Edward's Crown, which was in use by kings of England and wales up until 1649, when it was either sold or melted.
  • The cross in the middle is the stylized fur trade era fur trade silver cross, in style of master silversmith Robert Cruikshank of Montreal
  • Fleur-de-Lys flanking the cross may reference Quebec (it's coat has 3 Fleur-de-lys symbols nowadays, but earlier it was just two).

So, if it's original, then it can be traced to Canada, more specifically Hudson Bay fur trade era, at the turn of the 1700s and 1800s. May be earlier, because at that time pendants like this were no longer in use in trade (fur traders of 1600s and early 1700s would gift them to native tribe leaders in the wampum tradition), instead rather quickly fur traders and indigenous people would switch to trade the actual silver pendants (crosses, badges, animal shapes etc). Mainly because of their value and portability, like this find shows.

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