OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
Images / art

Two archives, queried live.

Every record below comes from The Met or Smithsonian Open Access and was filtered on that archive’s own rights field before it reached this page. 19 shown for “Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax” — 64 records examined, 41 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-08 16:06 UTC · fetched live for this request

Object
Public domainThe Met’s isPublicDomain field is true for this object.
CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian’s metadata_usage.access reads CC0 — a waiver, not an expired term.
Not shownAnything failing its archive’s rights field is dropped server-side and never appears here.
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 90,000–5,000 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cap streamer

Cap streamer

Artist not stated in the record · 1690s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 35,000–5000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Flax Spinning Wheel; New York, 18th C.

Flax Spinning Wheel; New York, 18th C.

Artist not stated in the record · 18th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–100,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Hand-illustrated cover

Hand-illustrated cover

Artist not stated in the record · c. 1944

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Gideon Granger's request for construction proposals

Gideon Granger's request for construction proposals

Artist not stated in the record · March 19, 1812

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Hand-in-Hand Fire Hat, by unknown

Hand-in-Hand Fire Hat

unknown · 1810-1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Hand-in Hand Fire Company Fire Hat, by unknown

Hand-in Hand Fire Company Fire Hat

unknown · 1810-1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Satchel for letter carriers

Satchel for letter carriers

Artist not stated in the record · 1920 - 1950

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 400,000–240,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Biface, commonly referred to as a hand ax

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 400,000–240,000 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
What was queried

Where these records came from.

Two archives are wired, and only two. Each one is filtered on its own rights field — never on a title match, and never on the presence of an image file.

  • The Met Collection API (Open Access)Rights field: isPublicDomain. 658 matched · 24 examined · 8 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.12 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 2401938 matched · 40 examined · 33 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.7 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-08 16:06 UTC, during this request. A completed pass is kept for 24 hours and replayed for an identical search, which is what keeps repeated queries inside Smithsonian’s 30-requests-per-hour allowance. A pass in which either archive failed to answer is never kept — an outage must not be replayed as though it were a finding about the catalogue.

Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress are deliberately not wired. Wikimedia was confirmed, on a live query, to return CC-BY material inside the same result set as genuine public domain works, and filtering it safely has not been designed yet. loc.gov was blocked by bot detection during the source evaluation, so its rights vocabulary has never been observed — and nothing here is built on a field nobody has read.

An image file is a rights claim. It never travels without its field.