File:Swiss coa bw.svg

English: black-and-white version of the Swiss federal coat of arms.

This is the version of the coat of arms used by the federal administration in official publications (when printed in black-on-white) during most of the 20th century, from c. 1930 (featured on the 1932 passport) until 2006. The vertical hatching is the heraldic convention to represent the tincture gules (red). However, the spacing of the vertical lines is chosen so that there are seven segments along the length of a cross arm, and six segments along the width, making explicit the proportions of the cross. This type of heraldic hatching was first used in 1888, on the five franks coin, there with the hatching's spacing twice as narrow, and using a different shape of heraldic shield. The convex triangular shield used here had been in occasional use since c. 1830, among a large number of other shapes, but began to be used consistently only from about 1930.

This version of the federal coat of arms was given legislative authority only in 2017, as it was included in the revised Wappenschutzgesetz (SR 232.21):[1]

Art. 2 Swiss coat of arms

1 The Coat of Arms of the Swiss Confederation (the Swiss coat of arms) is a Swiss cross in a triangular shield.

2 The example depicted in Annex 1 defines the shape, colour and proportions.

The "example" depicted in the annex, at least in the official online publication of the law, is a low-resolution jpeg image of the old black-and-white coa redrawn as a vector image here.

Peculiarly, the official "Corporate Design Manual" used by the federal administration since 2007 (CD Bund Handbuch 8.1, 2018) defines the coa to be used as "logo" using a shield with slightly different proportions than the one shown in the annex to the law, and it explicitly deprecates the vertical heraldic hatching, prescribing the use of a solid black shield in black-and-white representations instead. While this handbook has no legal authority, it is binding for any employees of the federal administration who issue official publications.

Consequently, this design has been given legal status after close to a century of use, and almost at the same time has been discontinued from actual use in official documents.