Hello, I acquired 3 of these in a large electronics lot. Most of the stuff was from the early 50's and 60's. I can't seem to figure out exactly what this is. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
They appear to be very similar to mechanical selector switch board early telephone exchange?.
Most local exchanges with these were gone by early 80's.
Max.
It looks like a type of matrix switch that could be used for selecting 1 of 14 voltages to output on each of 16 channels in 2 banks of 8. There would have been a sprung sliding contact on each of the curved ribbons. This could have been part of an early audio volume or equalization control.
The part missing is the rotating 'traveller' you can see the contact mark on the horiz rail where it rotated and the corresponding contact marks on the vertical strips.
Max.