An eBay antique find

[Merc]

I bought an old GE Type AK1 AC Volt Ammeter on eBay the other day that I repaired and calibrated for a customer when I was a bench technician for GE on Monday, July 19th 1976. You have to be an industrial electrician to fully appreciate a test instrument like this. The AK1s were made by GE mostly from the 1940s through the 1960s and were built like tanks.

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I found this one while browsing through the AK1s and was shocked to see one for sale that had a calibration sticker from our shop in my hand writing. Time has destroyed the carrying case and wire leads, but that is ok. The meter looks and works perfectly. Of course, I had to buy it. It showed up today and it was like an old friend coming home. A friend I have not seen for 47 years.

[mtnboomer]

A cool story!

[Merc]

When I think of the hundreds of various test and measurement devices I repaired and calibrated over the years, it is not surprising that some would come up for sale on eBay sooner or later. I am surprised that I saw it and had the opportunity to buy it.

[BuckeyeShooter]

THAT, is like finding your M1 from boot camp. Very cool treasure.

[Doc Sharptail]

We had an old voltage tester that was fairly simple to use.
It would hum on a hot neutral which was a big plus for us ballast slaves.
There were 8 pre-L.E.D. lamps in it for voltage indication.
The resin fibre body on it sure took a beating, and never broke in the 35 years that I used it.
Sure got dropped off of 16 ft step ladders a lot. It's probably still working today, and not being used due to it's lack of digital read out and non-phone compatibility :P

Regards,

Doc Sharptail

[Merc]

They don’t engineer anything to last 100 years like they used to when the world was being electrified in the early 1900s. Everything is cheaply built and uneconomical to repair. It saddens me to see fully functioning GE AK1s and Weston 633s in pristine condition sell for scrap prices on eBay when they were the best of their kind and probably still are.

[Phloating Phlasher]

Nice.
One of my first jobs when I finally emigrated here was working for Omega, the photo enlarger people.
My job was manually adjusting the auto-focus cams for the D3 enlargers & matching them to the individual lens serial numbers which was a very advanced feature for the time.
Fast forward a couple of decades & I bought a used D3 which was advertised as having the original serial matched lenses, cams & mounts (without which the Auto focus didn't work properly).
Yep, It was one of mine! I gave that thing a complete strip down & overhaul to "like new"!

[Merc]

Its a great feeling to be reunited.