Bucket shop (heraldry)

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An heraldic bucket shop is a heraldry company that will sell a coat of arms associated with the customer's surname. Sometime a company will create a coat of arms for a surname that never had a coat of arms. These coats of arms are almost always those of someone long-dead and of no relation to the customer. Most bucket shops maintain computerized data-bases, or buckets, compiled from old manuscripts, armories, or ordinaries. In most European traditions, a coat of arms must be inherited. Just because someone named "Smith" possessed a coat of arms does not mean that everyone named "Smith" has a right to use that armorial achievement.