Anybody tell me who and when this was made. New, old, homemade ?

It was made by Eastern Sports in Montclair, NJ. I believe in the early to mid 70's. I have one just like it I bought about that time.Mine still has thier sticker on it.They work very well also.  Ben

This has a wound dropping resistor instead of a transformer.  It will use more wattage and get hotter than a transformer type, but was quite inexpensive in its day.  Should still be effective if you can get the proper Nichrome burner wire.  The Young trimmer wire will not work for these models.

I used to have something similar to that one. Except it had a round ceramic post, instead of the square one yours has, with the wire coiled then wrapped around it in a spiral. That was was REAL old, my stepdad had it from the 50's at least.