Seal of the Vice President of the United States of the national coat of arms; it shows an eagle with wings "displayed and inverted" (i.e., wing tips pointing down), with its head turned toward dexter (its own right). In its right talon is an olive branch, and its left holds six arrows (just like the incorrectly drawn 1841 Great Seal die). The shield has the usual blue chief and thirteen white and red stripes. At the top is the legend , and the bottom has . No other impression of a vice presidential seal is known prior to the 1948 version. The Presidential seal and flag were redesigned in
Great Seal of the United States Over its head there appears a "glory" with 13 mullets (stars) on a blue field. In the current (and several previous) dies of the great seal, the 13 stars above the eagle are arranged in rows of 1-4-3-4-1, forming a six-pointed star. The 1782 resolution of Congress adopting the arms, still in force, legally blazoned the shield as "Paleways of 13 pieces, argent and gules; a chief, azure." As the designers recognized, this is a technically incorrect blazon under traditional English heraldic rules, since in English practice a vertically striped [[shield would be described as "[[Pale (heraldry)|paly]]", not "paleways", and