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Hartford, Connecticut (U.S.)

Hartford County

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 1 March 2008

Description of the flag
Detail of seal

See also:

Description of the flag

The flag of Hartford is the city's seal on blue. For the image above, the seal was used from the city's site www.hartford.gov/.
Dov Gutterman, 30 October 2002

Peter Orenski sent me long ago some local Connecticut flags. Hartford has inscripted: CITY OF HARTFORD (without *SEAL OF THE*) the little stars are in the middle.
Source: Flags for fun, Oakland CA 94619
Jarig Bakker, 30 October 2002

The NAVA image at www.nava.org/Flag%20Design/City%20Survey%202004/city_flag_photos/Hartford.jpg shows a ~3:5 very dark blue flag with a large circular seal centered on it, its diameter approx. two thirds of the flag height. The seal shows a (sort of) coat of arms inside the usual circular edge with lettering. This reads "City of Hartford" above and "Connecticut" below, with stars in the "equator" points. The coat of arms shows a forest and deer scene, with grapevine in the foreground, all dark blue on white on a pointy cross with pointy upper edge; it has a displayed golden eagle for crest, a motto scroll reading "Post nubila phoebus", and a golden plant-like branching mantling - these external details are line drawn in dark blue and filled with golden yellow. The background of the seal is white and its edge is dark blue with white lettering and a narrow white ring line separating it from the dark blue flag background.

But there seems to be two versions of the seal: A large image at the official website www.hartford.gov/city_seal_blue.jpg shows the same details as the NAVA image shown in American Flag Survey (2004) and American City Flags (Purcell, 2003) (an extra, dark blue ring line separating the whole from white background), while in Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HartfordCTseal.gif the seal edge is white, its writing and ring lines are dark blue, and the whole coat of arms is golden on white. It could be a case of slightly different seals for use on the flag (or not so slightly), but the image at Hartford.GOV is definitely not the photo of a flag - but rather a scanned drinkware pad OSLT.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 1 March 2008

Other versions of the seal can be found at:
www.the40yearplan.com/img/033007_Hartford_Seal.jpg (António Martins-Tuválkin, 15 April 2008)
www.the40yearplan.com/img/041807_Mayors_Update_Spring.jpg (Ned Smith, 15 April 2008)

It is not that unusual for an American municipality to use different color schemes or versions of its seal. However, the photographic evidence shows that the white background with blue ring version is used on the flag.
Ned Smith, 15 April 2008

Detail of seal

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 1 March 2008