Does anyone have any idea what this symbol means?

Factual Questions
1

Story I got from my grandma the other day was that decades ago he went to get a couple belts fixed or repaired back when the family was living on Maui, and when he went to pick them up the guy wouldn’t take his money, but gave him the repaired belts, which had the symbol in the image on them. Apparently he thought they were the symbol of some sort of brotherhood or something, but never bothered looking into it because he felt he was better off not knowing. The belts in question are WWII era Coast Guard belts, according to my grandma. Any ideas?

2

rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, it’s some sort of kanji symbol. No idea how to search for kanji characters.

3

Not kanji. Looks like it’s the Tibetan letter aum/om.
ཨྃ

4

It looks (without turning it 90 degrees) like Devangari script to me but there is no letter that looks like the “K”.

5

Oops, too late to edit, but pasted the wrong letter.
ༀ

6

Rotate it counterclockwise. Its a stick figure guy running with a line draw across the waist, problem symbolizing a belt.

But my first thought was that it wasn’t a symbol, it looks like someone wrote “YKO” in black marker.

7

Not sure how clear it appears on the pic but there’s a straight vertical line to the left of the “y”-like symbol.

And if it is ‘aum/om’, any idea why the guy wouldn’t take his money for the repairs? What would be the meaning of the symbols in that context?

8

Looks like a surfer to me…

9

If it is Tibetan, then it may be intended as a Buddhist mantra. Could have been a symbol for some brotherhood I suppose, the letter does have mystical significance in more than one religion.

10

Agreed - rotate and it’s a surfer on a board riding a wave. Which fits with the backstory.

11

Looks to me like a stylized monogram.

12

+1

13

I find it curious that you refer to your grandma consistently with the pronoun, “he”.

14

that does not look like part of the “monogram” to me - looks like different ink and writing implement.

15

I assume the “he” was grandpa, and the story came from grandma telling what grandpa (he) did.

16

Yeah, that’s right. Should’ve been more clear :smack: He died a few years back so I can’t get any more info from him directly unfortunately.

Maybe, but it’s the only other such mark on the belt, and it’s still pretty close to the rest. It looks like it’s part of it to me, just has a dark type smudge over it.

17

My first and only thought was that it was simply a signature of sorts for the leatherworker/repairman who did the work. Guessing all of the belts had the same symbol on them, with no variation?

Was your Grandfather known around the area in any way?
In any case, it’s pretty neat that you still have the belts to keep, along with an interesting story. :slight_smile:

18

Random acts of benevolence are a Hari Krishna thing.

Of course, the repairer may have done it for free just because it was like a one minute job,
and he normally makes bags,jackets,saddles, furniture…

19

All of this is what I thought.

20

I think we’ve discovered a secret society here.