What is it?

I am guessing an old box camera mount that can do panorama pictures by rotating the dial at the bottom of the box.

Geoline, post: 395185, member: 9338 wrote: I am guessing an old box camera mount that can do panorama pictures by rotating the dial at the bottom of the box.

Except it doesn't appear that the box itself can rotate, only the turntable within it. The box looks like it has fixed legs to which it is rigidly attached.

Incomplete Leslie-type speaker project?

Motorcycle cam/ timing adjuster. Why it's been affixed to the bottom of a box? Got me.

I'm wondering what everything else in the photos is supposed to be. Eclectic menagerie of potpourri.

I'm thinking the 'blacked out' interior of the box and the fixed portal are some sort of clue. The box allows something within to be viewed at different angles from a fixed position. And the viewing angle either needed to be precise or repeated; hence the graduated circle.

The portal is perplexing. I get a sense that something could be slid in or mounted in the portal frame. Maybe a photographic plate, maybe a light filter of some sort...who knows?

And it appears as though there are rails in the top for either storage or mounting something.

When you all figger it out, lemme know!

Stan Dardparallel, post: 395183, member: 895 wrote:
What the heck is it?

The remnants of a zoetrope or praxinoscope?

It has the look of a limited-production piece, which makes me think of scientific equipment. X-ray defraction apparatus comes to mind, with the X-ray source being stored inside the box when not in use.