Cloth Seal, French, Nimes Silk / Serge Seal

Cloth / Hosiery Seal, Col Nem (Nimes, France), Image & Found by Folkert.
Found in Germany.

Crocodile beneath a palm tree, COL NE(M) to sides of tree-trunk // . / .JEAN. / CHABANEL / .LAINE. / .*

Yanok (Tue 17 Jul 01:06:48 2007), (The inscription reads : Jean Chaban / Lane (=Silk) Col Nem (Nimes, France)
This seal should be dated to the 17th or 18th century. Lane does nor mean "silk (which is "soie"). You must read "LAÎNÉ" as a part of the name = Jean Chaban elder. This seal must be for silk stockings. XVIIIth century.)

See No.346 Fig.46, Geoff Egan,'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93)', "palm tree and crocodile, COL NE(M) to sides, NIMES below // fleur-de-lis, PIERRE LARNAC around ..... The abbreviation stands for Colonia Nemauensis, the Latin name for Nimes, and the main device is the city's arms (these refer to the foundation of the original Roman colonia at Nimes by army veterans from Egypt). ... a similar seal of an early eighteenth-century Nimes maker of silk stockins and cloth, David Baumer, was found in a wreck off eastern Mexico."

*From Paul Cannon, "A better example of this seal is recorded in Daniel Slowik’s catalogue “Les plombs de scellé; L’industrie de la soie de Nîmes” (2016), pp36-7. This shows that the seal probably reads . / .JEAN. / CHABANEL / .LAINE. / . Slowik shows that many members of the Chabanel family were involved in the industry."

From Things to See in the Languedoc: Historic Cities: Nîmes "The city’s coat of arms shows a crocodile chained to a palm tree - the device dates back to Roman times and commemorates the defeat of Mark Anthony on the Nile by the Emperor Augustus. The connection is that Augustus rewarded his legionaries with grants of land in the Roman colony here. ...... In the Middle Ages wool and silk industries brought wealth to the city. It was here that a particularly adaptable type of serge material originated. Serge “De Nîmes”, hence denim, found its way to America in 1870."

Coins with similar motifs Dupondius au crocodile and Bronze coin of Augustus and Agrippa, with pig's trotter appendage.