Below the eye is a Roman fasces, a bundle of birch or elm rods with a battle axe bound together with a ribbon of red, white and blue with the words, Union and Constitution.

The lower half of the shield has two miner's tools, the pick and sledge hammer, crossed on a golden ground.

Below the shield, on a scroll, is the motto "Nil Sine Numine", Latin words meaning "Nothing without providence" or "nothing without the Deity",[3] and at the bottom the figures 1876, the year Colorado came into statehood.

The Latin phrase appears to be an adaptation from Virgil's Aeneid where in Book II, line 777 the words "...non haec sine numine devum eveniunt" are found.

The Luttrell Psalter, a famous medieval manuscript dated to the 14th century, contains inside its binding an armorial bookplate of Thomas Weld (1750–1810), one of the book's owners,[6] and the motto on the plate's ribbon reads "nil sine numine".