Helveticus

So folks, I think I have solved my own riddle. Also with Frank's help regarding the signal post height. Looking at the other SMEC boxes in the forum, the type number starts with "E" probably for electric, and "H" for hand... So I think this "HO" refers to "Hand Operated". There's me getting excited about a non-existent HO scale trend in the late 1950s... ah well.

Yes Frank, I should have said, there are type labels on the boxes: one with "HO/D" and the other "HO/H". Obviously the letter after the slash meaning Distant and Home respectively. The height seems to be 3.7" (94 mm) post height above the baseplate. Maybe it was the same product... and "4 mm scale" is printed on the standard label at the right hand side of the box, which would have been a contradiction in itself.

I was not sure whether to post this under "British HO" or here... so please bear with me. I started this hobby in the early 1960s with a Tri-ang Princess Elizabeth and two coaches. Having moved to Switzerland 30 years ago, and nearing retirement, I am considering re-starting the hobby which I have neglected for the last 40-odd years. Now I have a historical question for you chaps. I know from my own experience that HO was never a mainstream thing for British-pattern railways. Imagine my surprise when I saw in a Swiss junk shop two British semaphore signals, in original boxes, made by Scale Model Equipment Company of Steyning, Sussex. One of my boxes has a price of CHF25 marked on it: the exchange rate between the Pound Sterling and the Swiss Franc was very different in the late Fifties, and would have been equivalent to about £2. A Swiss model shop selling British prototype models is fairly unusual. But there is a further mysterious factor: these signals were HO scale variants. So given that HO scale models of British prototypes are a very niche market even now, who was making HO layouts using British-pattern equipment in the late 50s or early 60s?