maybe a diamond in the rough

I looked at this lathe last weekend and I can pick it up for less than $500 with all of the tooling which is several boxes. My question is that the thread plates and transmission plates are worn pretty good and you cannot see all of the speed selections not sure if I want to take the time to...

Ok ran across this machine in the basement of a house that the guy told me that it belonged to his great Uncle. He put it in the basement in the 1950's and it has been down there since. Does anyone know anything about these? I maybe wrong but it looks that it does not have indicating dials on...