The Tolkiens' Arms from the Tolkiens' rune?

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Photo by Kimberlee Tolkien

Do you remember the letter which Professor Tolkien sent on 30 March 1951 to Florence Tolkien from the USA? If not, see here:

Previously unknown letter by J. R. R. Tolkien
on his ancestor from Poland! (1951)

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote there:

The accompanying table will show what little else I at present know, and the manner of our relationship as I guess it. Though I may add two additional points: The tradition that the eldest son was always called Johann or John which returned to me because my eldest uncle John Tolkien the sailor had no sons; and he had tradition of the family arms. The latter was said to be or have been – a blue shield with two gold chevrons and 5 gold stars three above and 2 below. The crest a half-griffin. I do not describe them in technical heraldic language as they are uncertain (and German in any case). The crest is given from an impression of my father’s seal; The motto is said to have been ‘Fest und Treu.’

Today, after a very nice meeting on ZOOM entitled "The Tolkien Ancestry Report, Part 1" in which two Tolkien ladies from the US took part (thank you, Charlaine Tolkien and Kimberlee Tolkien! 💓), Kimberlee sent me the photo which is reproduced above. It is the Tolkien family coat-of-arms known from the Tolkien's letter made years ago in wood by Kimberlee's father-in-law, Charles Woodrow Tolkien (1915-2004), a descendant of the Tolkiens from Prussia, Gdańsk and London (see here). Tolkien's letter from 1951 contained a drawing by Tolkien which didn't survive. This wooden coat-of-arms is the only copy of Tolkien's drawing. Compare it with the drawing by Nimwen in which you can see the arms drawn by J. R. R. Tolkien in his Book of Ishness (this is a copy of J. R. R. Tolkien's drawing which can be found in the Bodleian collection):

Drawing by Nimwen according to Tolkien's drawing from The Book of Ishness

Why different number of the stars? My theory is that each generation of Johns Benjamins added one star. If the arms from the letter belonged to J. R. R. Tolkien's half-uncle (I will write about him more very soon), and the arms by J. R. R. Tolkien from the Bodleian Library belonged to J. R. R. Tolkien himself, and when we remember that our Professor was supposed by the Tolkien family to be the next John Benjamin (thanks to his mother, Mabel, he was Ronald, not Benjamin), one additional star can be explained. 

According to my newest theory the arms of English Tolkiens were derived from the house marks (Cf. German hausmark, here) of the Danzig's (= Gdańsk's) craftsmen (the Tolkiens in Gdańsk were furriers and in Kreuzburg they were bakers). See the examples:

House mark of Cunczendorf shows that "chevrons" and "stars" could be used in the craftsmen's signs. If so, maybe the Tolkiens' arms came from a similar type of house marks? My proposition is as follows:

If so, the arms of the Tolkiens had their roots in the craftsmen's glyphs ("runes"), and this, what J. R. R. Tolkien described in his Book of Ishness and in his letter to the American Tolkiens could be derived from something like this (my drawings; imagine them as marks burned in the leather by a furrier master):

Historical house marks were kept through generatons with subtle modifications. See the example from the Gau family (click to enlarge):

What do you think about the Tolkien heraldry? And about my theory?

It is interesting that although the family of the second Danziger, of Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien, lives to this day (Charlaine and Kimberlee Tolkien belong to it), only in the family of his brother John Benjamin the tradition of the coat-of-arms persisted. This may be evidence that the coat-of-arms was invented only in England, perhaps in the generation of the J. R. R. Tolkien's uncle. And that it's just Victorian, pseudo-heraldic fantasies...