At the beginning of his reign, on 12 January 1837, King Ferdinand V of Hungary granted Hungarian nobility and a coat of arms to Ferenc Szerdahelyi, estate administrator of the Bishopric of Győr. The Latin-language charter, containing both a painted coat of arms and its heraldic description, was provided with the customary red velvet binding and with the royal greater secret seal impressed into an ornately turned brass case. By this act, the monarch acknowledged not only the merits of Ferenc Szerdahelyi, but also those of his father, Antal Szerdahelyi, professor of criminal law at the Royal Academy of Law in Nagyvárad (now Oradea, Romania). The shield bears, in a blue field, two upward-climbing green snakes crowned with gold and facing one another, and between them a silver chevron charged with a red rose with golden seed and green leaves; below, upon a floating jewelled golden crown, stands a silver ostrich holding two iron horseshoes in its beak; above are two floating golden stars. Upon the crowned barred helm is an armoured right arm grasping three arrows with golden points and red shafts. The mantling is azure and gold on the dexter side, and gules and silver on the sinister. The Szerdahelyi patent of arms were donated by the Hungarian Heritage Archives Foundation to the Hungarian National Archives, where they were incorporated into the patents of arms collection (reference: HU-MNL-OL-R 64-1.-1125).
Anton Avar