We have a digital scale that I use for weighing packages to mail, but we are looking at manual scales too, and so far the one I am thinking of is similar to the ones in your first photo.
My grandmother had one she used, and it is still accurate some 60 years later. My older sister has it now.
That's pretty much why I first bought the digital scales too.
Very much a case of they don't make them like they used too, we went through 2 slow cookers in 10 years and now I have the one my nanna had for nearly 30 and it's much better.
Yes, that seems to be exactly how it goes.