Joe D. Blades

Joe D. Blades was an American inventor credited in a 1913 Falmouth Outlook (Falmouth, Ky.) report with having invented a spring-based perpetual motion motor intended to power an automobile. The brief story was widely published in American newspapers from early 1913 through to 1914, but seemingly no follow-up was ever done.

Press Coverage

• "Found at Last.", Lakeland Evening Telegram (Lakeland, FL): 2, 4 Apr. 1913, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95047222/1913-04-04/ed-1/seq-2/ 
  

  Joe D. Blades, the noted inventor, who resides in the wilds of Bracken county, says he has found perpetual motion, and is building an automobile to be propelled by this power. He says that the power to run the automobile will be produced by springs. When one spring is running down the other one is winding up, thus creating perpetual motion. The auto is now about completed and he says it will be on the road in a short time. It is a self-starter. When you sit down in the seat the machine is put in motion; when you get it up it stops. — Falmouth (Ky.) Outlook.

The same story, with the same identical text, was circulated nationally via many American newspapers, including the Louisville Courier-Journal (7 Feb. 1913) and the New York Times (23 Feb. 1913).