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. 12 shown for “Smith & Wesson” — 23 records examined, 1 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-26 20:18 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.

Smithsonian Open Access: HTTP 429 from api.si.edu. Results from the remaining archive are shown unchanged — nothing is substituted for a source that did not answer.

Smith and Wesson .32 Caliber Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 17156, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .32 Caliber Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 17156

Smith & Wesson · 1881–1902

Public domainThe Met
Smith and Wesson .32 Caliber Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 94421, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .32 Caliber Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 94421

Smith & Wesson · 1892–93

Public domainThe Met
Smith and Wesson .44 New Model No. 3 Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 25120, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .44 New Model No. 3 Single-Action Revolver, serial no. 25120

Smith & Wesson · ca. 1888

Public domainThe Met
Smith & Wesson .44 Double-Action Frontier Model Revolver decorated by Tiffany & Co. (serial no. 8401), with Case and Cleaning Rod, by Smith & Wesson

Smith & Wesson .44 Double-Action Frontier Model Revolver decorated by Tiffany & Co. (serial no. 8401), with Case and Cleaning Rod

Smith & Wesson · ca. 1893

Public domainThe Met
Smith & Wesson Model 1 ½ Second Issue Revolver (serial no. 30451) with Case, by Smith & Wesson

Smith & Wesson Model 1 ½ Second Issue Revolver (serial no. 30451) with Case

Smith & Wesson · 1869

Public domainThe Met
Smith and Wesson .38 Caliber Double-Action Revolver, serial no. 70002, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .38 Caliber Double-Action Revolver, serial no. 70002

Smith & Wesson · 1882–83

Public domainThe Met
Smith and Wesson .38 Caliber Safety Third Model Double-Action Revolver, serial no. 83097, with Case, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .38 Caliber Safety Third Model Double-Action Revolver, serial no. 83097, with Case

Smith & Wesson · 1892–93

Public domainThe Met
Smith and Wesson .44 Double-Action Revolver for George Jay Gould (1864–1923), serial no. 23402, with Case and Cleaning Brush, by Smith & Wesson

Smith and Wesson .44 Double-Action Revolver for George Jay Gould (1864–1923), serial no. 23402, with Case and Cleaning Brush

Smith & Wesson · 1888–89

Public domainThe Met
Winchester Model 1886 Takedown Rifle decorated by Tiffany & Co. (serial no. 120528), by Winchester Repeating Arms Company

Winchester Model 1886 Takedown Rifle decorated by Tiffany & Co. (serial no. 120528)

Winchester Repeating Arms Company · 1899–1900

Public domainThe Met
Colt Model 1851 Navy Percussion Revolver, Serial Number 29705, with Case and Accessories, by Samuel Colt

Colt Model 1851 Navy Percussion Revolver, Serial Number 29705, with Case and Accessories

Samuel Colt · ca. 1853–54

Public domainThe Met
Chevalier d'Eon, by Thomas Burke

Chevalier d'Eon

Thomas Burke · 1771

Public domainThe Met
Inked Impression (or "Pull") of Engraved Firearms Ornament, by Ernst Moritz

Inked Impression (or "Pull") of Engraved Firearms Ornament

Ernst Moritz · late 1840s

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. 23 matched · 23 examined · 1 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. HTTP 429 from api.si.edu. No records from this archive are shown for this query.Unavailable

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-26 20:18 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.