...but a comment about the uniform. US Army service dress uniform model of 1922. Basically the standard M1912 uniform of World War I fame but with collar insignia and buttons in gilt brass rather than blackened bronze.

The uniform was replaced in 1926 by the open lapel type which is still in use today, albeit in a different color.

The amp on the left is likely a Western Electric 7A, a small amp using 3 216A tubes. The amp on the right, not exactly sure but looks like a 3-stage amp, transformer-coupled, probably using 2 stages of 216A and perhaps 205D tubes as output (push-pull).

The 7A is more common than the 138 but both are pretty rare these days. 7As usually sell in the $1500-2500 range today, even without tubes. 216A tubes are not that common but also not in huge demand, and are usually in the $200-400 range on ebay. 205Ds are in a lot higher demand, often around $1000/ea on ebay. All of these tube types are referred to as "tennis ball" tubes.This tube shape was almost exclusive to Western Electric, but that shape was made by a few others (United, Duo-vac for example) who made tubes for the WE Replacement market, usually variants of the 205D.

The tubes are still used for rather exotic DIY tube amps, often for the high-end audio market. There's some modern chinese replacement(?) tubes made to replace 101D and 205D types, but not 216As. The chinese ones attempt to share some of the specs with the vintage Western Electric ones but the operation points (Bias, etc.) are often different significantly.

Is this the radio control room for Walter Reed radio headset network? The radio operator is wearing some sort of uniform and the equipment sure looks like the system described here:

Technically, the radio apparatus at the hospital is of a high order. Three distinct aerials are used, large, medium and small, and each of this is attached to a separate neutrodyne receiving set in the control room. With the receiving sets, two amplifiers are used. One clears the tones sent from the receiving set to the 1,365 headphones in the various wards. The small amplifier does the same for five loud speakers with which the receiving apparatus is connected at the same time.

The boxes with the exposed tubes would then be the amplifiers which drove the headsets and speakers.

I wonder if any of those knobs go up to "11?"

With the wires cut on all those Rectigons, not to mention that empty lamp socket, there's a lot of juice flowing out all over the place. Reddy Kilowatt to the radio room with a mop, please.

If you turned a shelf-full of these on, you'd certainly make quite a racket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_fc8mwdoe4

Just look at those lovely spherical vacuum tubes, many placed on view for their subtle blue and amber glows. And behold those handsome, man-sized white on black knobs. We have barely more than a dozen "valves" involved in this picture. That versus a few hundred billion in my desktop computer, but at some loss of elegance.

And as for the Rectigon Battery Chargers, who does not recognize the inspiration for the modern designer Espresso Machine?

The table legs do seem a bit overdressed for the table top; I suspect they were "re-purposed" from a damaged table when the radio guys needed a table slapped together in a hurry for their gear.

Very ornate legs for a table that looks like something knocked together in half an hour by someone who had trouble finding the nails with his hammer (witness the apparently random hammer bruises).