Tincture

Tincture is the word Heralds use for colour. There are three kinds of tincture: colours, metals and furs. With one exception, everything on a heraldic device must be in these tinctures.

Colours

The five colours, in approximate order from most to least common, are:

• Sable (black)
• Gules (red)
• Azure (blue)
• Vert (green)
• Purpure (purple)

Metals

The two metals are:

• Or (yellow or gold)
• Argent (silver or white)

Furs

The furs are many, but the most common ones are:

• Ermine (black ermine spots on a white field)
• Counter-ermine (white ermine spots on black)
• Erminois (black ermine spots on yellow)
• Pean (yellow ermine spots on black)
• Vair (a regular pattern of blue and white)

(Note that counter-ermine is called ermines in the literature, but we use the longer name to help stave off typos.)

Proper

The one exception to these tinctures is called 'proper'. If an creature has a normal, unarguable colouration, then it may be described as proper. For example, a greyhound proper would be grey, or a man proper would be pale pink (in Europe at least). This has some implications for matters of contrast. If there is no normal colour for a creature - lions, for example, can be anything from white through yellow to black - or if it's a mythical beast, then it doesn't have a proper colour, so this exception doesn't apply.

Tinctures Chart

The following table shows the tinctures and their black and white equivalents.

Silver	Gold	Red	Blue	Green	Purple	Black
Argent	Or	Gules	Azure	Vert	Purpure	Sable