Let's revive this thread.
Current state of my bench includes most items at least as old as the stuff I'm fiddling with.
Scopes:
Tektronix T934A lunchbox portable (or Hoover canister vac, depending on who you ask)
BK Precision 1474 (no match for the Tek--I need to open it up and clean all the switches at least. But it was free.)
Hantek DSO5102P, which isn't actually half bad
Bench DMM's, in increasing order of manliness:
Keithley 175--good, basic 4.5-digit bench DMM with autoranging.
Fluke 8050A--like the Keithley, but not autoranging. I have two of these, but one is in the fixit pile.
Keithley 197--a very good 5.5-digit meter that will measure down to the microvolt range.
HP3456A--the absolute king of classic 6.5-digit bench DMM's. Doesn't measure current, sadly. It's the size of the deck of a Nimitz-class carrier, can be bounced off the tailgate of a truck, contains about 100,000 parts, and loses calibration in about a hundred years. I have absolutely no reason to own this, but I had to have it. To me, it's the supreme expression of Bill Hewlett principles in a package I can afford, at least on today's used market.
Portable DMM's:
Fluke 115, the standard electrician's DMM.
Simpson 260, because why not? But I use it rarely enough that the batteries are usually dead when I do.
Plus about 75 cheapies, none of which I can find when I need them.
AC SSVM:
Trio VT-106, which is absolutely perfect for biasing tape decks

I bought it when rebuilding the Teac A4300 R2R deck.
Function generator:
Kikusui Model 455, very old-school analog waveform generator.
Tektronix CFG250 (Tek's rebranded budget line, cheap and cheerful, and will produce up to 20-volt waveforms. Stick an amp on it and have a frequency-agile AC voltage source.)
Frequency counter:
Tektronix CFC250 100MHz 8-digit frequency counter (as above, but not terrible: 10 PPM accuracy, which for base-band audio is about five digits more than we need.)
Power sources:
PDI 2015R--truly stellar piece of equipment. About 10 or 20mV ripple and response to changing loads up to 20 volts and 1.5 amps within 25 microseconds.
PDI 50-15-150--much older than the above but good when I need to stack them together to get higher voltages.
Kikusui PAB 32-2A--the one the Chinese like to rip off. This one has a digital display. I just got fixed it after it arrive last week having been dropped and seriously crunched in transit.
GW Instek GPC-3020 triple power supply, which makes setting up a positive/negative source for testing opamps and so on really quick and easy. 30 volts, 2 amps.
Craptastic no-name Chinese switch-mode lab power supply, 60 volts, 3 amps.
All the above can be daisy-chained to produce 20+50+32+30+30+60=202 VDC, maximum current 150 mA. Not much need for that
Regulated load:
Transistor Devices DLR 50-15-150 for testing power supplies, which seem to me to be the most likely fault of the stuff that ends up in my fixit pile, except for mechanical issues and dirty switches/pots.
Misc:
10-amp General Adjust-A-Volt (aka, Variac) that works perfectly about 400 years after it was made.
BK Precision Model 830 capacitance meter. Uses four D cells, which do, however, seem to last about five years.
BK Precision Model 510 transistor tester.
Probably about half the above could be done by a good, modern handheld multimeter.
Rick "missed this thread when it was fresh, but let's freshen it up with some old, moldy crap" Denney