COLLEGE ARMS: Oxford Shop (Updated Sept. 24, 2016)

These framed Oxford college shields include Merton's new one. The Merton and Green
Templeton enamels look metallic golden, which is good... but they differ from the yellow
enamels in the All Souls, St Antony's, SEH, Trinity, Wolfson and other shields, which is bad.

Following up on my article on the Oxford Colleges' coats of arms in the Michaelmas 2015 issue of Oxford Today and and a brief previous note on the Oxford University Shop, last week I paid another visit to the Oxford Shop at 106 High Street.

This time I had a kind introduction by Christine Fairchild and Chris Evans of Oxford Limited, which is charged with licensing the trademarked Oxford logo. This official logo used to be only the new belted shield as in the middle of the photo above. Now Oxford Limited has also licensed an older shield.

As the Walt Disney Company has found in earning its $52 billion/year revenue, mostly from its world-wide licensing programs, the job of a licensing agent goes beyond writing contracts with wannabe licensees. They must:

• ferret out knock-off producers who copy the licensed product without permission or fee, and  
• ensure that wherever the licensed product is on sale it is a quality item produced sustainably in socially accountable workplaces.

The Oxford college coats of arms, which is my focus, are in an interesting situation. The Oxford Shop sells college-branded products but it does not license them, nor do the colleges themselves. The arms of each college are the responsibility of the college's governing board. The colleges' boat race identifiers–the blades, Boat Club blazers, ties–present an even more interesting situation, since they predate many of the colleges, and in the case of St Catz the Boat Club provided the name of the college instead of the other way round.

Unlike Oxford University itself, none of the colleges—according to several knowledgable people to whom I have posed the question—has trademarked its arms. This surprised me, especially in the case of the business college Green Templeton!

In the Oxford Shop Tracey gave me a thorough tour of Oxford University's college arms offerings, and I was given special permission based on my introduction to photograph various items featuring the college coats of arms for the purpose of illustrating my analysis of the arms. (More to come.)

Other Posts on the Arms of Oxford Colleges and PPHs: Original Article in Oxford Today . Heraldry as Branding . Heraldry as Fun .  Coat of Arms vs. Crest . Sinister Questions . Visit to the College of Arms . Windsor Herald Talks to New Yorkers . Shaming of Harvard Law Shield :: Rapid Expansion of Oxford's Colleges and Halls . Oxford Stars . HERALDRY SUPERLINK . Harris Manchester College . Linacre College . St Catherine's . St Cross College . St Edmund Hall . Trinity College :: Regent's Park College . St Benet's Hall

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