Well there`s something you don`t see every day. Quite simply it is a Thomson Houston version of the Edison screw-plugs that old appliances used to have in the early days of electricity before wall sockets appeared. A table lamp, fan, set of decoration lights, etc, was fitted with a plug that had a lamp base instead of the usual prongs (see attached photo for an example) and that was then in turn screwed in to a nearby wall light fixture. Early electrified homes were usually only wired for lighting with no seperate provision for powering other appliances.
I have never seen one that was made for TH sockets before now so that has got to be an extremely rare and valuable object.
The push switches would probably have been used in the more grand/wealthy residences of times gone by to alert the occupying family`s servants. Linked to a bell and/or electromechanical indicating panel with solenoid-released drop flags to show which room the call came from. Essentially an early version of the nurse call buttons you find in hostipals and residential care homes today.
Incidentally whoever`s sales those are, to me those are very misleading ads, giving the impression by the titles and photographs that the bid is for the entire group of items. If you were not paying 100% attention it would be easy to miss the fact that in actuality only one of the items in each case is for sale, given the large amount of "standard waffle" among the miniscule item descriptions. Not to say that if the seller shipped internationally, I wouldn`t have a try for that TH screw plug...
