Cloth Seal, French, Nimes Silk / Serge Seal

Cloth Seal, French, Nimes Silk / Serge Seal, Image & Found by Rick J. Barton.
Found on Prince Edward Island, Canada, ?mm.

Fleur-de-lis, inscription around // crocodile chained to palm tree with COL NEM to sides of trunk

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."

This seal is not a Pierre Larnac seal but probably for Pierre Toubas. This was suggested by Michel Royer & Daniel Slowik but they do point out that he was working from 1796 until well into the 1800's.

From Michel Royer, "If it is the same character as that of the marriage certificates of the city of Nimes, we can say that Pierre Toubas at the time of his marriage on 06.06.1797 was 20 years old, his father was Jean Toubas, also a sock maker. He is found as a witness to another marriage in 1802 at the age of 26."

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.