PURE guesswork on my part - I'm ready to be wrong on all counts. Or
pleasantly surprised to be proven correct...
Looks to me like it might have something to do with high
frequency/voltage work - perhaps having some connection to things like
tesla coils and "violet wands".
What gives you the idea that it's polarized? Or am I missing some tidbit
of information that I ought to be stumbling over?
Serialized is easy: inventory control.
The box picture shows me at least two, possibly three, layers of tags on
it, and it looks as though the same hand wrote the serial/voltage
numbers on both, at least on the parts that show through. Could easily
be Joe D. Clerk tagging inventory on a couple of occasions.
Presumably, the voltage entry would be the tested-to voltage? At 149.1
volts, does it arc to soak up overvoltages? Seems a bit long to arc that
low, though. Which leads me to think it might be some sort of
strobe-like unit - the reflector/backplate would be the "trigger" line,
and it needs to get to 148.9 to trigger the discharge? Or perhaps "volts
148.9" is understood by the staff who stocked this item as "148.9KV",
and it's actually a (nominal) 150KV surge suppressor? 150KV arcing a gap
that size makes a lot more sense than 150 volts.
Maybe something for pumping a laser? No telling what's inside it to make
what kind of color that could be used to pump, ferinstance, a crystal
laser of some sort. Careful which way you point it if/when you power it
up! And a lead-lined jock might not be a bad idea if you plan to breed
in the future.
No telling what this thing might put out!
Looking back at the box...
Am I crazy, or does it not look like it fits this item??? or is this an
end-shot? Toss a penny or a ruler or something into the shot for some
scale. Ditto the tube shots - #1 is good, but needs something for scale.
#2 is OK, but desperately needs something for scale. And #3... Uh... I
don't know what to make of it. It doesn't look like the "fittings" seen
in either #1 or #2. Where'd the little conical "nipple" on the end of
the electrode go? Is that even the same tube???
Yoiks! Cancel that... I just this instant see what's going on... You
flipped the tube end-for-end between #2 and #3. No wonder I didn't
notice it to be polarized. Ouch, dude, that one made my brain hurt.
Don't establish an orientation then switch up on the poor innocent
viewer that way!
Now that I've done some photoshop-like tinkering, and have the three
shots laid out oriented to each other (I put the result up at
<
http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/Tube.jpg> if anybody's interested), I see
that it's definitely polarized. Interesting... DC, then. And rated for
148.9 volts...