Extreme NEWB Questions and Speaker Identification

scottwissing you got an incredible deal! lkp1952 is correct. Those are Beryl speakers. And you are correct, they were made by Dale Pitcher when he was in Lincoln. They were made in the early 1990's and sold for anywhere between $2000 to $5000 a pair depending on the deal you got from Dale. I have a pair myself down in the basement in my backup system. My entire main 2 channel system is made by Dale: preamp, amps, external crossovers, speakers, interconnects, and speaker cables. He made incredible stuff. Unfortunately he went off the deep end about 6 years ago with a psychotic break and of course is out of business. Such a shame, he was truly an electronic genius.
A salesman who sold a lot of Dale's stuff is Duane Randleman, now with Automated Lifestyles in Bettendorf, Iowa. He would know details about those speakers if you need more info.

OP, first welcome to the hobby. Second, strongly consider keeping those speakers. In this hobby there can be a significant amount of seller's remorse--when someone has something of high value that they got a great deal on and then leave it behind for something else. I suggest you listen to the speakers first before trying to "flip" them to someone else. It appears you have a bird in the hand....
 

Thanks to everyone who responded and helped me identify the speakers. I really appreciate all the help. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the speakers a bit and learning along the way. 

I’ve learned that I don’t have the right kind of equipment or cables to really do the speakers justice. I’m trying to pick up a few things I need but for now I’ll just have to stick with my Home theater receiver and basic audio cables. 

I have a couple more questions...

1. These speakers sound absolutely amazing vocally...never really heard anything so pure. However, there is little to no bass...I’m not looking for a crazy amount but there is really none at all ...would you pair these with a stand alone sub woofer? And no I’m not exaggerating when i say there is almost no bass...

2.  I know it isn’t a purist way to listen to them, but I’d like to use these as my home theater speakers...what is the best option for cables? I’m going to have to be running an hdmi cable from my cable box to my receiver...would a high quality optical cable be my best bet from receiver to tv? The current optical cable is one of those tiny ones that probably cost $1 and when i tried using the speakers with it, it was about as loud as a whisper on the highest volume setting. So obviously not enough juice. 

3. Can someone send me a link for a couple 2 channel amps that would be a good fit for these speakers? Wouldn’t mind getting them second ha d to save a bit of money. Thanks a lot!

1. No bass? Have you looked inside the speakers to make sure the woofers are completely wired up? No bass is not ordinary. The sub-woofer issue has many opinions on this forum--they are interesting and I recommend you read them. Since you are running HT, presumably you have a sub-woofer anyway. If you do, then you should be able to run your system in a 2.1 configuration (the 2 represents "two channel" the .1 represents the "subwoofer"--forgive me if you already knew that--your title says "Extreme NEWB" so I'm trying not to take anything for granted).
2. Don't worry about purism--only you and your family have to live with your audio decisions. I suggest you check out Blue Jeans Cable for all your current cabling needs. They are made well and won't gobble up your audio budget--you probably didn't realize you now have an ever present audio budget :-)
3. I will leave it to others to help you better match a 2-channel amp with your speakers, since I don't have any direct experience with them. It appears Dale Pitcher also made amplifiers, which should match well with his speakers--but they appear to have been very pricey and don't seem to come on the used market very often.
It would help if you could find out the power rating on your speakers. Then you could know how many watts you need to make them shine. Your HK AVR-1700 is rated at 100W/channel. If everything is working properly in your speakers--put your ear to each tweeter and woofer to  make sure (with the volume at a low level)--then your bass problem is probably because your receiver doesn't have sufficient quality power to drive your speakers properly.
Just my two cents.
Enjoy the journey.

These speakers sound absolutely amazing vocally...never really heard anything so pure. However, there is little to no bass...

If the speakers are powered by a AVR, please make sure the speaker setting is "Large" or "Full range" and not "Small"