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Seal of the vice president of the United States

Official insignia of the Vice President of the United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ7440595 ↗
Source-derived summary

The seal of the vice president of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the U.S. vice president to other members of government, and is also used as a symbol of the vice presidency. The central design, directly based on the seal of the president of the United States (and indirectly on the Great Seal of the United States), is the official coat of arms of the U.S. vice presidency and also appears on the vice presidential flag.

There are virtually no records on early vice presidential seals, but there were versions in use as early as 1846 and almost certainly earlier as well. There was no official definition of a vice presidential seal until 1948, and today's version dates from 1975 when it was redesigned under President Ford.

Design and symbolism

The current seal is defined in Executive Order 11884, made by President Gerald Ford on October 7, 1975. It states:

The Coat of Arms of the Vice President of the United States shall be of the following design:

SHIELD: Paleways of thirteen pieces argent and gules, a chief azure; upon the breast of an American eagle displayed holding in his dexter talon an olive branch proper and in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows gray, and in his beak a gray scroll inscribed "E PLURIBUS UNUM" sable.

CREST: Behind and above the eagle a radiating glory or, on which appears an arc of thirteen cloud puffs gray, and a constellation of thirteen mullets gray.

The Seal of the Vice President of the United States shall consist of the Coat of Arms encircled by the words "Vice President of the United States."

The blazon (written design) is exactly the same as the seal of the president of the United States, except that there is no surrounding ring of stars, and four elements—the clouds and stars above the eagles head, the scroll, and the arrows—are specifically colored gray to differentiate them; in the president's seal these are "proper", argent, white, and proper respectively. Obviously, the surrounding legends on the seals are different as well. The official line drawings are likewise virtually identical; the most noticeable difference is that the center tail feather is slightly shorter in the vice presidential version, which was perhaps inadvertent.

Editorial summary

“Seal of the vice president of the United States” enters the record as official insignia of the Vice President of the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Seal, vice and president can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1846, 1948, 1975—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Seal, vice and president.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Seal of the vice president of the United States” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Seal, vice and president provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7440595. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1846, 1948 and 1975.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Seal of the vice president of the United States” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.