What the heck is this thing?

[Boiled_ice]

Went to an estate sale and found an "Elgin Universal Concentrometer." It looks like a hydrometer which is temperature corrected but my google fu could not come up with any hits. Literally 1 hit if typed into google. I found an ebay auction of the exact one I got here.

I dont care if it isn't a hydrometer, I like how it looks and got it for a buck but does anyone know what purpose this thing serves?

 

[Chrisl77]

Well the ebay says its Elgin softner corporation and its water conditioning equipment so I would say its probably a hydrometer for salt water.

 

[Rivenin]

what he said, look up salinity meter, you'd prolly have more hits

 

[ajdelange]

It is clearly a hydrometer whose function is to measure the concentration of something in a solution. The question is what? How is the scale marked? What happens if you put it is water? Or a solution made by adding 10 grams of sucrose to 90 grams water?

Given that it was made by a water conditioning company I would guess it is for checking the concentration of brine used to recharge water softeners.

 

[Boiled_ice]

The scale is from 0 - 1000 with no units. It also states "to find concentration in grains per u.s. gallon subtract temperature reading from float reading." Will do some experimenting with it when i get home.