What is this fixture (ERS)?

[tjrobb]

Thomas Robb's Photos - Really old lighting | Facebook

This album has two parts, this thread relates to the second half.

While digging around the theatre I work at, I came across a rather strange ERS. Intrigued, I went to the 'net to try and find out what it is. Problem is, I have yet to find an answer. I have looked at the Strand archives, old Kliegl catalogs, even to a certain degree the patent office.
Any help you may be able to provide (even if it is pointing me in the right direction) would be most appreciated.

[Van]

Wow, I'venever seen an ERS like that. It's very distinctive, though, with that odd grometric back-end. I bet somebody here will know it.

[Dionysus]

Sorry, defiantly can not put a finger on this one. And I have seen a LOT of really old fixtures.
Is there any sort of information on it? Custom made perhaps?

[tjrobb]

Alas, there was no info on the unit. Yes, i had given thought to it being custom, but if it was it would have to have been done by a pro. The use of spring steel for the lens retainer, good alignment of the lenses, and the overall precision means the builder knew what they were doing. (For instance, each of the four shutters goes into a slot a fraction above the next shutter slot, so they all fit neatly on top of each other and allowed for the spacers; as opposed to the slots all being at the same reference height.)

[TupeloTechie]

I have no clue what these are but some just like it popped up on ebay.

Stage/Theater Lights Lot of 6!!! NO RESERVE!!! - eBay (item 220452154737 end time Jul-19-09 11:37:48 PDT)

[renegadeblack]

Those are plain old weird. I have some similar (kinda) looking ones but the back part is more cylindrical.

[mrtrudeau23]

They look like a medieval version of the Century ellipsoidals with the angled lamp housing.

[seanandkate]

I flipped through my trusty Photometrics Handbook, and the housing looks close to the models that Lighting & Electronics put out. Yours looks even older than the ones in the photographs in my book, so yours may predate them. The model were No. 61-12 (for a 6x12), -06 for a 6x9, -16 for a 6x16. You get the idea. The axial versions had "AQ" before the 61. Hope this gets you closer!

[Goph704]

I thought that they were really old Kliegl Bros. lights. I've messed with a few of them in some of the older community theaters I've worked at. They work decently at short distances if you clean them up a little, just be careful messing with the asbestos tails there.

[derekleffew]

Not Kliegl, and since L&E has only been in business some forty years and these look older, [Edit: L&E began in 1961, cofounded by industry legend, Sonny Sonnenfeld] not them either. Very curious that a lot of six of these would appear on eBay.

I suspect some long defunct manufacturer of the 1940s/50s.

Thomas Robb's Photos - Really old lighting | Facebook

Is the lens a step or PC?