Talk:Seal of Oregon

Contradiction?

The image of the territorial seal doesn't match the description that says there is a banner with the Latin motto and then "Seal of the Territory of Oregon" above around the edge. Is there an image available that shows this (I assume there were different versions) or and/or does the text need to be modified to explain this? Also don't forget to mention the mountain(s) (Hood?) in the territorial seal. Katr67 (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is the one with it, but due to poor quality I think it's best to leave the current one there. If someone clicks on the image in the article they can exam the much larger version of the seal. As to mountains, I didn't see a mention in that source of the mountains or which ones they were. Aboutmovies (talk) 01:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Oregon State Capitol

Does anyone have a close up of the seal embedded in the rotunda of the capitol? There's this one by Cacophony, but it doesn't show any detail: Image:ORCapitolFoyer.jpg. Not sure if it's trivia to add a sentence like "In the floor of the Oregon State Capitol rotunda there is an embedded Oregon State Seal sculpted in bronze by Ulric Ellerhusen. Katr67 (talk) 20:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Great Seal of the State of Oregon

The official title of the Oregon state seal is the Great Seal of the State of Oregon. See the Governor's Archives Month Proclamation for an example. --Buaidh (talk) 14:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

versions of territorial seal

The Seal of Oregon on the left was recently replaced by Carrite with the seal on the right. The new one is clearly much higher quality; but they are different seals. Anybody know why there were two, what distinguished them, etc.? -Pete (talk) 00:35, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

• The one I put up (at the right) is from Hubert Howe Bancroft (1888), also the source of the seal up at the article Washington Territory. The one on the left has a phony baloney modern colorization scheme going and I trust that one as far as I can throw it. Carrite (talk) 5:42 pm, Today (UTC−7) (x-post from Oregon Territory:Talk).

In practical terms, I suspect that neither are "official" in that constitutions sometimes describe a seal in words and leave it up to artists to interpret. I know this happened for the Communist Labor Party of America which had two similar-but-different "alternate" seals that were used in official documents. There was never a party "authorization" of the change of their seals, it just happened. Probably the same story here. Carrite (talk) 00:49, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, good insight there Carrite seems very plausible. I had assumed the colors were the result of deteriorating materials and/or poor scanning, not something phoney baloney...but quite possible you're right on that too. Thanks for finding and scanning the Bancroft version -- great to have a high-res version on hand. (By the way, not sure how closely, if at all, you follow the WikiProject Oregon discussions, but you might be interested in what I posted here about capturing images from old Oregon histories.) -Pete (talk) 01:18, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Edit request: 1959 redrawing of the seal by George T. Bonner

I am a relative of the artist, so I am proposing this here rather than editing the article myself.

Proposed addition to the state seal section, after the sentence about Harvey Gordon's proposal:

The rendering of the seal now in use dates from 1959, when Governor Mark Hatfield asked George T. Bonner, an illustrator for the State Department of Employment in Salem, to devise a new design. According to a 1970 profile in the Herald and News, Hatfield contacted Bonner after one of his paintings of a pioneer wagon train appeared on a magazine cover. Bonner produced two designs in color, each 6½ inches in diameter. Born in Montana and a former ranch hand, he had worked as a commercial artist for about 30 years, and after retiring in 1964 he painted scenes of the Old West in Klamath Falls.

Reason: The article credits the 1857 design to Harvey Gordon but does not mention the 1959 redrawing or its artist. The source is a staff-written newspaper profile; I can supply a scan of the clipping on request. ~2026-53262-28 (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2026 (UTC)

~2026-53262-28 (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2026 (UTC)