Skip to content

The Talking Machine Patent Archive

Patents you could hear

Browse Dates Inventors Types About

Bell-tainter patent

Patent drawing showing a rotating wax-coated disk mounted on a base with an upright frame, a crank-driven flywheel turning the disk through gears, a cutting-style recorder mechanism above the disk connected by tubing to a nose-fitting mouth-piece, and several detail insets of the stylus, reproducer, and friction-clamp components.

RECORDING AND REPRODUCING SPEECH AND OTHER SOUNDS.Chichester A. Bell and Sumner Tainter · May 4, 1886

United States patent drawings and specifications are works of the U.S. government and are in the public domain — they were never copyrighted. Download them, print them, frame them. Our commentary and descriptions are © 2026 The Talking Machine Patent Archive.

About · Terms · Privacy · Corrections welcome — this archive gets better when collectors write in.