Iver Johnson offered a triangular tapered "axle" at least as far back as the teens. I say "axle" because it was integral with the right side crank and you bolted on the left crank. I presume the idea goes bck further than that. Maybe Ray Homiski will give the off topic, turn of the last century origins of tapered axle setups. It was a free for all back then in terms of crank attachment ideas.
So the the "cotterless" tapered idea is old, at least in steel.
Joe B-Z
GNNJ
> As far as I can ascertain, Stronglight were the first to offer square
> tapered BB spindles (and cranks to go with them) in 1933. In fact,
> this was Stronglight's first product. For detailed quotes, see
> Vintage Bicycle Quarterly No. 4, p. 4-5. These cranks quickly were
> adopted by the French cyclotourists, influenced by the technical
> trials, where these cranks proved their durability and performance.
>
> There may have been others, but Herse is the second French one
> mentioned, introduced in 1938. See VBQ No. 4, p. 16-17.
>
> Together with the alloy cranks (later called 49D), Stronglight also
> introduced a traditional steel crankset for cottered BBs (shown in
> the same ad in La Pedale Touristique quoted above). Racers didn't
> adopt the square tapered spindles until the 1950s, so Stronglight
> probably wanted to capture some of that market, too. I read somewhere
> (Le Cycliste, 1930s?) that the racers' reluctance was due to the
> higher Q factor of the alloy cranks (which by modern standards were
> super-low, but times change).
>
> There were several attempts at splined BB axles. I have a Gnutti
> crankset from the 1950s (?). Anybody got an axle to go with that?
>
> Jan Heine, Seattle
> Editor/Publisher
> Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
> http://www.mindspring.com/