Here I've got pics of some real steep old wiring from Austria. A tenant told me the old owner of the house (roughly 30 apartments, built around 1905) died in 1983, and from that day NOTHING was done to the house. The daughter lived in NYC and only flew to Austria every few years, lodged at Vienna's most expensive hotel, had the manager drive her around in his Rolls and cashed all rent money.
Note: in Austria if you own an apartment house it's very common to get a property management company that does all the work like taking care of the finances, deciding about smaller repairs and getting rid of tenants who complain of problems in their apartments. I know those management companies both as a tenant and son of a landlord in another place and neither like them. Their main job seems to be to get as much cash as possible out of the house without handing it over to the owner. That usually results in low-quality repairs if any.

This particular manager went belly up with about 50 000 Euro debt, went to jail for two years and now runs the next property management company...

Anyway. The wiring is most likely original in most parts, some stuff was redone in the 50s, some even later, but that's mostly patch work.

The pictures are on Photobucket, because I already uploaded them for another board, if you want feel free to copy them to the ECN server.

I don't know for sure what this is, but I think the main feed from the street comes in at the right top corner and at the bottom you have a cable that goes through the cellar to the riser that feeds all apartments.
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]

A main fuse box. Pretty neat compared with what you'll see later.
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]

The HRC fused switch at the left is probably the main fuse as it isn't labeled and there are 100A fuses in it. The one to the right is for a small shop and only has 25A fuses in it. 3 Diazed fuses would have been enough...
The D III fuses above are the main fuses for an apartment and a set of unused fuses. 35A. 3x35A is hefty, even considering the apartment is 200m2.

Those fuses are ahed of the meters and every tenant has got a key to these fuse boxes.

Yikes, what a mess!
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]
Most of the fuses are unused because either the apartments are vacant or two apartments have been connected together. Still, it looks awful, and somebody removed PoCo disconnect stickers.

The meter box for the elevator, dated February 1958.
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]

Detail of the fuses and switch
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]

That's some kind of phone patch panel that seems to run most of the block according to the old labeling.
[Linked Image from i17.photobucket.com]

To be continued...