Need help in what this could be. It has a power cord connected to it which is not visible in pictures. There are no other markings other than the word Eriksson and the symbol of E on it.

This belonged to my late father who was a keen radio collector.

Somebody here will know the answer. I know less than many, but I will start the bidding with a guess that this is a device for testing capacitors and maybe other components?

Maven

Eriksson? A very early mobile communication device?

It looks like a number of leads plug into it, maybe a medical instrument of some description...

My first guess was for telephone or telegraph measurements, because of the brand name, but quickly realised that L M Ericsson is spelt with a "C" and this device is spelt with a "K".

The connectors look vaguely telephone and the meter scale offers no clue to me.

Harold

A company using a similar name "Ericsson" used to make cell phones, but your device certainly isn't a cell phone. Even though it has a display...

The fact that it has what looks like a Cathode Ray Tube is in itself a clue.

It has to be showing something? I think I would / will start by Google searching heart monitors. That lot still make medical equipment. Perhaps contact?

The fact that it has 3 plugs a the bottom & 3 calibrations may not be coincidence and the white knob a switch, rather than a potentiometer?

Perhaps a tad more on that knob.

Marc

The dial scale includes capacitance-type gradations but they could also be lens aperture references, plus the top dial scale could be exposure times as fractions of a second.

So I think Marc is probably in the right area of some kind of medical monitoring device.

That type of enamelled cast housing says 1960s to me.

It's definitely not the phone company.

Maven

That type of enamelled cast housing says 1960s to me.

I'm thinking more like 1940s.

But what it is beats me. Have never seen anything like it.

I have an STC piped music system in a rack cabinet that came out of the Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Hospital and its frame and front panels are shrinkled enamel (same finish as the item above). I am sure it is early 1950s so this could be the era of this kind of finish.

Initially I thought the item was an early oscilloscope as the screen and controls are fairly similar. Nothing in my searches on the Web came up with any information about a company called Eriksson (with that spelling). There is Ericsson, the maker of telephones as mentioned above and Erickson, the maker of the aircrane helipcopters we use during bushfire season.

It is surprising that there is not a name plate with a model and serial number on it somewhere, especially as it is so ruggedly constructed.

The case looks a bit lacking in depth for a CRO tube. Could the window be a ground glass screen for displaying a shadow/optical meter of some sort?

Time to open it up and photograph the innards!

There might be a fully descriptive label on back or the bottom - we haven't seen those either.

Maven

As Maven suggests, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 - definitely sounds like f stops. It could be the controller for an xray machine, worse still with that screen it might actually be a small xray machine. These were popular novelties years ago, every second shoe shop had one. I don't think I'd be turning it on just yet . I'd love to see more photos of the bottom , back and other side.

Eriksson is there started in 1950 that's why I made the comment on contact.

One has to have confidence in their guesstimation of what it is.

It is not quite the same as the machine that goes "ping"

http://www.henryeriksson.se/web/article.asp?artID=842.

Marc

The bottom linear scale appears to have a V next it, presumably volts.

Do the top 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 log scale, and the 7, 8, 9, 10 linear scales have a label? Is the light reflection on the meter glass obscuring something?