Heraldry is, as well all know, about IDENTITY so it is very interesting to see that there are at least two heraldic connections with that supreme test of identity - the bank card!
The card, with its chip and pin technology has, like most of us, a long and interesting genealogy including a musical ancestor in the form of the THEREMIN invented by Leon Theremin in 1919 - almost the only musical instrument which does not require physical contact, operating by the use of short wave radio,
The Russians used Theremin to develop short-wave technology to create bugging devices which were undetectable as the devices have no internal power source, the power being beamed at them remotely by radio.
So, in 1945, towards the end of the War, The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union visited the American embassy in Moscow to express the hope of World peace and global harmony. They brought a beautiful present with them for the Embassy - an expertly-carved wooden copy of the Great Seal of the United States:
Naturally, such a beautiful heraldic object was put up in the Ambassador's office at home in Spaso House where it remained spying on the Americans through the reigns of no fewer than four ambassadors before being discovered. Because it was passive, needing electromagnetic energy from an outside source to become energized and active,the hidden microphone evaded all the detector tests.
This technology opened up the possibility of creating devices which did not need internal power-sources. In our bank cards, there is sandwiched a length of thin wire which operates as an aerial antenna to power the computer chip, the antenna deriving its power from the merchant's tablet. Incidentally, the purpose of the energised chip is to provide a unique code for every transaction. Heraldry wins again - the eagle has landed.
Heraldry Connection 2 - if you are still awake...
In 1974, as part of a desire by banks to get away from cheques and other very easily forged items, the Egyptian-French inventor Roland Moreno hit on the idea of replicating the ancient art of the SIGNET RING, an easily-carried identifier for many hundreds of years. It never really took off in that form but it did lead directly to Moreno's creation of the embedded chip in a form he called la carte à puce.
