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Welcome to Your Future:
A 19th Century Vision of the Year 2000
face, the shapes strewn across the body, and the limited arm and leg
hair make for a frightening drawing. This is the toy of nightmares.
In reality, however, the patent drawing is meant to depict a tele- A series of futuristic pictures by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists
phone made for animals. Yet in its current state, it’s hard to imagine issued in France in 1899, 1900, 1901, and 1910. Originally in the form
that an animal would even come close to this strange contraption” of paper cards enclosed in cigarette/cigar boxes and, later, as postcards,
(illustration descriptions taken from wired.com). the images depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the then-
distant year of 2000. As is so often the case their predictions fell some way
Collecting Scientific Illustration off the mark, failing to go far enough in thinking outside the
If you collect it, there is an illustration for it. Getting the patent confines of their current technological milieu (hence the ubiquity of
illustration for an item is something that makers of fine prints and propellors, not to mention the distinctly 19th-century dress).
There are at least 87 cards known that were authored by various
French artists, the first series being produced for the 1900 World
Exhibition in Paris. Due to financial difficulties, the cards by Jean-Marc
Côté were never actually distributed and only came to light many years
later after the science-fiction author Isaac Asimov chanced upon a set and
published them in 1986, with accompanying commentary, in the book
Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000.
These, too, are technical illustrations that may not include scientific
notations or exacting measurements, but show what happens when
technology and imagination meet.

posters seek out to reproduce for collectors. If you like Indian motor-
cycles just type in “patent image for Indian motorcycle” and you will
discover page after page of various model patent images. You can see
the same image on parchment, colorized to look like a blueprint or a
piece of art with artistic elements strewn across the sheet.
Buying original patent drawings can be a tough search, but you
may have better luck by defining your search with a patent
name or number, looking online at a history of a company, by
the inventor’s name, or by searching patents by using
www.worldwide.espatenet.com/patent/search, where you
can type in “Teapot” and sort results from oldest patent to
newest (the oldest being from 1858 in this search).
Fair Warning: once you start searching the patents and
discovering the illustrations, look out – you will surely
spend hours glued to your computer screen.
Another interesting website is www.patentauction.com
where you can purchase patents and use them to liscense
the idea and, if included, the image. Patent US
D498,171 S is for a decorative light string, shown at left. This par-
ticular light string has a festive Christmas theme.
In use, these images and more can contribute
to the theme of your decor. Enjoy florals? An
Audubon folio hand-colored image of hibiscus
may work on your walls. Work from home for an
electrical company? Seek out a schematic of an old
radio or circuit. Drafting? A blueprint of the
Empire State Building (like the one shown at
right) would be an impresssive statement piece.
Museums also feature fine collections of
illustration as it relates to a particular division of
science and technology. The Met’s Department of
Drawings and Prints is comprised of approximately
21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000
illustrated books from the year 1400 to today.
There is a Study Room for Drawings and Prints
where unexhibited works can be explored, and
over 177,000
works can be
explored on
The Met’s
online data-
base (click
here to fol-
low a link to
the database).
The possi-
bilities are
endless.

20 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles