Originally Posted by John E

The cited patent (1992-1994) is 25 to 30 years too late for the mechanism pictured.

The clue here is that the freewheel drives the rear hub via the axle, rather than directly. I suspect this rear hub includes a Model T style 2-speed epicyclic system, but with a centrifugally set automatic shift point. The manual rotation of the spoke protector determines the wheel (and therefore ground) speed at which it shifts into the high gear range, which is probably direct drive. As you hold the wheel and turn the cogset manually, you are engaging the low gear range, via the reduction gears of the epicyclic gearset. Thus, you have a conventional 5-speed manual transmission with two automatically-set ranges.

The fact that there are coincidentally 5 click-stops on the pie plate and 5 cogs on the freewheel perhaps confuses the issue a bit.

Try riding it and see if you can discern a (noticeable!) shift, probably from a 4:3 reduction to 1:1, about the same as a Sturmey Archer AW going from 1st to 2nd or a chainring switch from 39 to 52. (There's another hint: instead of a typical 46T compromise chainring, this thing can use a 52, because the reduction system provides the missing matching 39 or 40T small ring.)