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. 14 shown for “Bramwell Valve, Patent Model” — 42 records examined, 25 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-05 20:41 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.
Tenor valve trombone, by Adolphe (Antoine Joseph) Sax

Tenor valve trombone

Adolphe (Antoine Joseph) Sax · ca. 1863

Public domainThe Met
Bramwell Valve, Patent Model

Bramwell Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1859

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Baritone shoulder horn in B-flat, by Henry G. Lehnert

Baritone shoulder horn in B-flat

Henry G. Lehnert · after 1875

Public domainThe Met
Cameron Pump Valves, Patent Model

Cameron Pump Valves, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1874

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Carhart Balanced Valve, Patent Model

Carhart Balanced Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1866

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Corliss Exhaust-Valve Gear, Patent Model

Corliss Exhaust-Valve Gear, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1876

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Thompson Balanced and Cut-Off Valve, Patent Model

Thompson Balanced and Cut-Off Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Allen Two-Motion Cone-Valve, Patent Model

Allen Two-Motion Cone-Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1855

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Sickels Tripping Cut-Off Valve, Patent Model

Sickels Tripping Cut-Off Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1852

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bartlett Poppet Valve Gear, Patent Model

Bartlett Poppet Valve Gear, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1867

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Richards Balanced Valve, Patent Model

Richards Balanced Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1866

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Scheidler and McNamar Throttle Valve, Patent Model

Scheidler and McNamar Throttle Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fitts Governor Valve, Patent Model

Fitts Governor Valve, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1859

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Dow Direct-Acting Steam Pump, Patent Model

Dow Direct-Acting Steam Pump, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1879

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
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. 2 matched · 2 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.2 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 40419 matched · 40 examined · 25 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.12 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-05 20:41 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.