Transformer? Choke? What?

[Merlin3189]

Just out of casual interest I wonder what this is?
I have it simply because it has a lot of copper in, but before I remove that, I wondered what use it might have?
Each half is one continuous winding with taps fairly evenly spaced. The two windings are by rough measurement the same. The two windings were externally connected with matching ends joined. There may have been other interconnects when it was installed. I believe it was in a vending machine which was connected to single phase 250V AC. The core is laminated as if it were a transformer. Maybe it's a transformer with very large leakage reactance, but there does not appear to be an air gap in any of the iron parts.
The iron is about 18.5cm x 12.5cm x 4cm . It weighs around 7kg.
The wire that I can see is about 25g and I estimate each winding to be around 2000 turns.

I can't look it up easily on the web as I don't know what words to use. Pictures of transformers and chokes have not yet turned up anything I recognise.

I emphasise that this is just idle curiosity, but if anyone knows what it is, I'll be interested to hear.

 

[chopnhack]

Could it just be a specialty product made for the appliance? It looks like its just two shell type transformers sharing a common wall for weight and space savings.