Old stuff

wolram

What is the oldest man made thing you own? i love antique furnature, vehicles and gizmos, my cott would be full of the stuff if i had the money,
most of the time i could not explain why i like antiques, may be it is the patina or the touchy feely thing, when my bike is finished i intend to buy a few select items, first on my list will be a small welsh dresser style cupboard.

Gokul43201

My oldest possessions are my books and coins.

I have several books printed in the 30s and 40s, notably Schrodinger's book on Statistical Thermodynamics, Mott's books on Electronic Processes, Glasstone's Electrochemistry and a few books on Crystallography and Space Groups. I've also got a very interesting encyclopedic collection by Funk & Wagnalls printed in the 20s. My oldest books include 1903 and 1908 prints of Gaboriau, a 1913 reprint of Churchill's Modern Chronicle and a beautiful 1911 print of Guy de Maupassant.

Among my coins, the oldest ones I have are all Indian coins, mostly from the 30s through the 60s. The oldest one I have is an Edward VII (1906) "One Quarter Anna", India.

But wait...I haven't checked the fridge yet!

JasonRox

You can buy old Roman coins for pretty cheap.

Every now and then they sell stone age tools on eBay too. They are authentic. They have millions of them all over.

Danger

I couldn't begin to tell you. The basement at my mother's place still has stuff left from her parents and grandparents. There's an old Beattie (sp?) washing machine (a horizontal rotating drum with a hand crank), a couple of golf clubs, part of a croquette set, and some horse tack all from the mid-late 1800's.

Mattara

Probably the underwear I'm using right now.

turbo

I used to own a Clovis spear point that I found on the beach one winter day in Mobile AL. It was a beautiful point made from streaky blue and tan stone. A friend really admired it, so I gave it to him on his birthday. I have several Winchesters that are well over a hundred years old, and an acid-etched hand-blown vase that I bought at a flea market for $3. I showed it to a glass expert and he said it would bring $200-300 and he thought it was 19th C. I bought my wife a nice little chair that's at least 150 years old. It's made entirely of tiger maple with a cane seat, and it has an elaborately-carved splat in the back with what looks like a pine cone in deep relief framed by acanthus leaves and scrolls. It is beautiful and amazingly light.

Chi Meson

This is an old engineer's box that belonged to my great-grandad. The box is from the 1880's or before. Made by the Union Steel Chest Corporation. Stamped with a "T478" at the bottom. Woefully underutilized, it holds things like paper clips, batteries, an old hard drive. I opened the drawer with my micrometer to make it look better.

Edit: I did a quick Google search, and it seems that the box is not quite as old as that. I couldn't nail anything down, but the machinist boxes from the late 1880's don't look anything like this, where as those from 1900--1930 all look nearly exactly like mine.

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turbo

These machinist's chest are wonderful. They held not only calipers, micrometers, etc, but also cutting tools and specialty tools. The shining achievent of a master machinist was the ability to shape and harden cutting tools that would reliably cut metals without wearing out quickly and without requiring constant adjustment to keep the cuts within specs. Some of the nicest chests that I have seen have been English, made from fine-grained oak. Light, but sturdy.

wolram

It is a lot more fun finding the coins, i have about 30 found with a metal detector in the vincinity of an old roman fort, i also have some hammered silver coins from the 1600s, my best find was a gold (love ring) when i dug it up it looked nothing, a trip to a jewelers and it was a1, he told me the gold
was almost pure, i sold that for £200, one thing that all ways amazed me was the amount of live ammo i dug up, over 50 rounds in one field, model aeorplane engines were another regular find, one day an old gent asked me if i could find his departed wifes wedding ring lost in the garden some 10yrs ago, after 4hrs of searching i found it, the joy on that old guys face was worth a million quid, he offered to pay me but i was so chuffed i could not have taken any from him.

Ivan Seeking

I have an abacus that my uncle took from a dead Japanese soldier during WWII; a plate from the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis; coins and stamps dating back to the 1800s; a single-shot German made 12 gauge from the same era, a milk pitcher from around 1900... none of it is very valuable except for a few of the coins of stamps, but still, the value is nominal overall, and it all has more sentimental value than anything.

The oldest thing that we have is probably a stone found on the property. It has been fashioned for grinding; presumably by a native American. Age: unknown.

Oh yes, I probably have some underwear that is getting pretty old...

wolram

Ivan, what on earth would a jap soldier be doing with an abacus?

Ivan Seeking

I don't know the exact circumstances under which the abacus was taken, but in China and Japan, they were common back then.

Ivan Seeking

I had hoped that the plate from World's Fair might be worth a bit, but as it turns out, it is the most common item found. I googled and it popped right up. It is claimed that for an extra dime, anyone who bought a sandwich got one.

wolram

Well it looks nice and i would have it on show.

Ivan Seeking

I was thinking about the abacus, and it could well be that it was being used either in battle or in supporting role. Even when my dad spent time in Japan - ten or fifteen years later - the abacus was used everyday by a good percentage of the population - I think mainly the older folks by then. From what I understand, they were seen anyplace that one might see a calculator, computer, or a cash register now.

While growing up, I loved to listen to my dad's Japanese albums - music from the 40's and 50's. I think they were 78's.

scott_alexsk

I have a book made in the 1890's which I bought for about 2 dollars on Albris. When I was doing research for my report on Thomas Nast, the political-cartoonist's name came up and I thought it was a personal memior( sp). But I found that it was illustrated by him and was really like a travel-book (but I am not sure because I have better things to do than spend several days working through victorian english. )

-scott

wolram

I quite enjoy finding the roots of engish language, a pure language would be so nice.