Tricking

Tricking is a method for indicating the tinctures (colours) used in a coat of arms by means of text abbreviations written directly on the illustration.

Tricking and hatching are the two primary methods employed in the system of heraldry to show colour in black and white illustrations.

[4] Almost simultaneously, Don Alphonsus [Francisco] Ciacconius, a Rome-based Spanish Dominican scholar, named the tinctures after their Latin initials.

[citation needed] Or was designated with "A", for aurum; argent with "a" for argentum; azure with "c" for caeruleus; gules with "r" for rubeus; and vert by "v" for viridis.

Otto Titan von Hefner, a 19th-century German herald, maintained that the first traces of hatching on the woodcuts began during the 15th and 16th centuries.