I remember those! I think my grandfather had one out by his garden whe I was growing up on his farm.
Sometime in the early '60s I made an electric anemometer. It consisted of two little servo motors; one outside connected to the wind vane and another inside connected to a circuit board. I soldered a bunch of neon lights to the board, and as the servo motor turned, a wiper closed the connectone,illuminating a lamp at that cardinal point. It was all mounted behind a cardboard compass rose with holes for the lamps.
The wind speed was measured by how quickly another neon lamp blinked as the anemometer cups closed a separate circuit. Funs stuff at the time!