Helping someone move today and found this dusty Ammeter, was wondering if anyone w/ better Google-Fu skills could find any info on it.

It's a model 720 Ammeter by Superior Instruments of New York USA

You can see in the pics it is a 10-200.A toroidal AC Ammeter,It has what appears to be Bakelite parts so I'm thinking early 50's but not sure.

It was given to me,tho I'm not quit sure what to do w/ it,toss it on Ebay for 20$ or salvage that massive toroid...

The needle don't zero out and I would be afraid to attempt to test it..

 

Since it seems all record of this archaic device is lost to history,I have decided to salvage the toroid.

Only one thing stopping me,and maybe the old timers around here can help me out with it.
What is the possibility of this thing containing asbestos shielded wires?

Knowing 200A operation would probably make some heat in the toroid,makes me wonder if they used the stuff back then.

You can see in the bottom left hand side what looks like they used shoe strings to insulate with.

A world w/o modern plastics must have been a strange world indeed........