Me and Grizewald did have a little bid war this last weekend. And I won. Not without some regrets; I'd told myself to stop well below where the auction ended but I think it was worth it.
From RFT Volkseigene Betrieb Gerätewerk Karl-Marx-Stadt (which used to be Siemens & Halske Werk Chemnitz), the 1KΩ Meßwiderstand. In NOS condition, with approval note and user manual, in original 1950s paper box. Unused, as far as I can tell.
I also received 1 Ω and 10 Ω variants of same origin. However, they have seen a 200lb gorilla sometime on their way to me (perhaps even before being sold, the packaging was unharmed and well made), and are rattling; the resistance wire carrier is broken off. They measure reasonably right, but are not in tolerance as far as my very quick 2-wire measurement could tell, though. I'll look them over and get back to them. (it might very well be so that the 974A does considerably better on 3 digits and up Ohms, of course, especially in 2-wire. Shorting the leads gives 0,08 Ω wire resistance, so that must be factored in, and will of course be more and more significant as measured resistance decreases. )
From another manufacturer, in the same shipment, I also received this;
This time, we're in Austria, and the brand is Norma, Fabrik Elektrische Messgeräte, and we've come into the swinging 60s. Again, with test protocol, original packaging, and flawless NOS condition. As far as my 974A can tell, it's within specification. 1964-09-16 it was measured to 99,995 absolute Ω, which comes out to 100.04399755 International Ω, and I measure it to 100.08 Ω including measurement leads which are measured to 0,08Ω when shorted per above. /hp/ sez BAM.
With the exception of a small NOS mains transformer tapped for 120, 220 and 300(!) Volts primary and some valve heater voltages secondary, the lot is concluded with this:
Also here, NOS 60s stuff, made in USSR this time, by V/O MACHPRIBORINTORG USSR MOSCOW (which I suspect is the import-export front end, not the factory as such), a 0,001 Henry mutual inductance coil. I've not made a measurement setup for it, but DC resistance I did check, and it is spot on, when accounting for measurement lead errors.
Its path to me is interesting. Apparently it was exported to the UK, and sold from "Electronic Hobbies" at 91 Pancras Road, London NW1 in 1970; their receipt was also included. (Is that £2 10 shillings? I'm quite bad at old UK money...) The store existed in 1977, I found an ad from them in the November edition of
Wireless World (p135).
All in all, a reasonable catch, I think. Had it gone for the starting bid of SEK 130 (and neither me nor Grizewald would have let that happen), it would have been an orgy of jammy gits; but now it's more of what you'd expect from those Ukrainian sellers that sell old standards in sets. Plus that Soviet inductor (and a small transformer). And shipping was half of the cheapest I can find on Ebay.
Yeah, I'm happy.