Volta Laboratory Graphophone Prototype

Built around 1886 at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., this prototype is where tinfoil gave way to wax. Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter coated cardboard cylinders with wax and cut the groove into it with a chisel-like stylus rather than pressing it into foil, which gave a much clearer recording. They won the basic patents for recording in wax in 1886. The machine is now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.