Exonumia

Shriners International, previously known as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (AAONMS) and also commonly known as Shriners, was established in 1870, and is an appendant body to Freemasonry.

The name change from the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as Shriners North America, to Shriners International was facilitated in 2010 across North America, Central America, South America, Europe and Southeast Asia. The organization is best known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children it administers, and the red fezzes that members wear. The organization is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Shriners International describes itself as a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth. There are approximately 340,000 members from 195 temples (chapters) in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the Republic of Panama, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Europe and Australia.

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that traces its origins to the local fraternities of stonemasons, which from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of masons and their interaction with authorities and clients. The degrees of freemasonry, its gradal system, retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master Mason.
The basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the lodge. The lodges are usually supervised and governed at the regional level (usually coterminous with either a state, province, or national border) by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, world-wide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry.