Pre-Phonograph Recordings (Score 2, Informative)

In the 1860s, a man went around "recording" things with glass disc coated with carbon black and a needle attached to a megaphone that scratched the carbon off when someone spoke. They were curiosity items, since there was no way of playing them back, but the inventor got some famous people, including President Lincoln, to make them. This technology could let us hear them. Also, laser technology for reading LPs was available at the very end of the LP era, and is still being sold, at astronomical prices, today ($8-14K). See http://www.elpj.com/ I've read that it's not very good at eliminating tics and scratches.