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. 13 shown for “Mrs. ZIP placard” — 42 records examined, 24 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 01:56 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.
Preparations for the Jubilee or Theatricals Extraordinary, by Thomas Rowlandson

Preparations for the Jubilee or Theatricals Extraordinary

Thomas Rowlandson · October 24, 1809

Public domainThe Met
Mrs. ZIP placard

Mrs. ZIP placard

Artist not stated in the record · After 1963

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mr. ZIP standing cut-out

Mr. ZIP standing cut-out

Artist not stated in the record · c. 1970

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
ZIP code poster

ZIP code poster

Artist not stated in the record · 1966

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
"Mr. ZIP and the 5 Little Digits" flyer, by Government Printing Office

"Mr. ZIP and the 5 Little Digits" flyer

Government Printing Office · December 1965

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mr. ZIP thermos

Mr. ZIP thermos

Artist not stated in the record · 1969

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
ZIP code poster

ZIP code poster

Artist not stated in the record · 1963-1970

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mr. ZIP sticker

Mr. ZIP sticker

Artist not stated in the record · May 1963

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mr. ZIP poster

Mr. ZIP poster

Artist not stated in the record · May 1963

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Test stamp booklet with Mr. Zip cover

Test stamp booklet with Mr. Zip cover

Artist not stated in the record · 1963-1966

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Placard reading "JUSTICE 4 FREDDIE GREY" used at Baltimore Protests, by Peoples Power Assemblies, American

Placard reading "JUSTICE 4 FREDDIE GREY" used at Baltimore Protests

Peoples Power Assemblies, American · April 2015

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Placard reading "community control of police now" used at Baltimore protests, by Peoples Power Assemblies, American

Placard reading "community control of police now" used at Baltimore protests

Peoples Power Assemblies, American · April 2015

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Elévations d’une Porte a Placard à deux Venteaux, ornée d’une Corniche en S. / Elévation et Profils d’une Porte à Placard à deux Venteaux / Elévation d’une Porte à Placard à un Venteau ornée d’un dessus de porte, by F. Cornille, active 1740 - 1756

Elévations d’une Porte a Placard à deux Venteaux, ornée d’une Corniche en S. / Elévation et Profils d’une Porte à Placard à deux Venteaux / Elévation d’une Porte à Placard à un Venteau ornée d’un dessus de porte

F. Cornille, active 1740 - 1756 · 1751–55

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 · 1 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.1 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 118907 matched · 40 examined · 23 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 2026-09-01 01:56 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.