If I could take out one armload, the second thing would be the stuffed animals. The first would be a candy dish that my grandmother gave me, having recieved it herself as a gift in 1923. I haven’t had it as long as the stuffed critters though, only since 2002, when my grandmother entered the nursing home. She always kept it filled, and we grandkids always tried to sneak it.
This doesn’t mean I love the critters less. I’d still take them even ahead of photo albums.
I have my teddy bear that I got for my first Christmas when I was 3 months old, so he’s almost 42 years old, just like me. I loved all of his fur off except inside his ears. He had several nose transplants because I would drag him around by the nose and it frequently came off. There is a huge scar up his back where Granny restitched him after a stuffing blowout. Unless something terrible happens and our house is destroyed, I’ll have him till I am no more.
I have a Gibson acoustic guitar that my maternal grandfather gave to me in … 1980, I think.
Funny story about it, though. In 1980, I was 14 years old and just beginning to learn to play guitar. I had found an old acoustic guitar in my aunt’s childhood bedroom closet at my paternal grandparents’ house. It was my aunt’s old guitar from the 1960s, when she had made an abortive attempt to learn to play.
That guitar was an extremely cheap, Japanese-made guitar (in the 1960s, when “Made in Japan” was still a term of derision). It was also a classical guitar, a kind of guitar that is typically strung with nylon strings. This one had steel strings on it, and it had been sitting in that closet for 20+ years with the strings tightened. If you know anything about guitars, you know what that meant. The neck was horribly bowed, and the strings were nearly 1/2" above the frets at the 12th fret, making it nearly unplayable. But I was doing my best, teaching myself to play basic chords on that guitar.
So one day my family was visiting my maternal grandparents, and I had that guitar with me, and I was fumbling around with it in front of my grandparents. That’s when Grandpa Jim spoke up.
Grandpa Jim was a casual guitarist. Grandpa Jim was also an alcoholic. In fact, when my mother was a child, Grandpa Jim was the “town drunk” in their small town. My sister and I had been kept away from him when we were very young, if he had been drinking, but by this time he’d sobered up and had remained sober for six years. Unfortunately, shortly before this particular visit, somebody who did not know he was an on-the-wagon alcoholic offered him a beer. And he thought, “one beer won’t hurt” and accepted the offer, and ended up drunk for the next 2-3 weeks. This was unexpected, and so my mom had not been forewarned, and we showed up at the the grandparents’ house to find Grandpa drunk. Surprisingly, Mom did not keep us away from him this time. I suspect she thought it would be educational.
So I was sitting there on the floor with my piece-of-shit guitar, trying to play something for my grandparents. After listening to me “play”, and looking at the guitar I was “playing”, Grandpa Jim spoke up and said, “You can’t learn to play on that guitar!” He reached around behind his chair and pulled out a guitar case, and handed it to me. “Here, you can have this!” (his exact words). I opened up the case, and saw this Gibson acoustic guitar. Given that I was 14 years old and just beginning to learn to play guitar, I did not understand the significance of this. I didn’t know a Gibson from a Fender from a Hondo at that point. But I was perceptive enough to immediately realize that this was a much better instrument than the one I’d been struggling with. (I at least knew how to recognize a quality instrument - by 14, I already knew how to play piano, clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon).
Once I had that Gibson, my guitar playing improved quickly. I never became a virtuoso, but I became at least a “competent” guitarist playing that guitar. Over the next several years, I played that guitar almost nonstop, and I always had it with me when the family visited my grandparents. Grandpa Jim never said much, he just listened to me play. Grandpa Jim died when I was 22 years old, after I’d had his guitar for 8 years.
Fast-forward quite a few years, to my late-30s/early 40s. Grandpa has been dead for almost 20 years, and now Grandma is living with my mom. I was playing that Gibson in front of her, and she blurted out, “Clarence (that was Grandpa Jim’s first name, but everybody except Grandma called him by his middle name, “Jim”) always said he never gave you that guitar.”
Whoa. That was a bolt out of the blue, and was something I had never considered. When Grandpa Jim gave me the guitar, he was drunk. Except, at 14 years old, I didn’t really understand what that meant. My mom’s way of “protecting” my sister and I from Grandpa’s drunkenness was to completely shield us from it, and keep us in complete ignorance of alcohol and its effects (one of the most baffling things in my childhood was family vacations, when we were looking for a place to eat, and Mom and Grandma rejecting restaurants because of the “cocktails” sign in the window — I didn’t even know what a “cocktail” was; all I knew was that I was hungry). But by the time Grandma spoke those words, I was much older, and had gone through my own problems with alcohol (yeah, thanks Mom for keeping me ignorant) and I suddenly understood. Grandpa had “given” me the guitar when he was drunk, and never said a word about it even after he sobered back up (he was only off the wagon for 2 or 3 weeks, then stayed sober again until the day he died). But, having been a “drunk” myself, I understood what had happened. Grandpa knew he had been drunk, and he knew he had actually said, “You can have this”. He regretted it once he sobered up, but was too embarrassed to say anything afterward. And I understood that, because I would have been the same way. I learned fairly young (18-22 years old) that “I was drunk” is never a good excuse, and I never tried to excuse anything I’d done or said while drunk. Well, I tried once, the first time I got drunk, but the guy who spared me from kicking my ass told me, “Next time, that won’t be an excuse”, and I never tried to use it as an excuse after that. Hell, when I eventually got arrested for DUI, I didn’t argue. I just told the judge “Guilty” and did my time and paid my fine.
But now I’m 47, and I still have that guitar. And … I never play it any more. Many years back, I realized that my calling was to be a bass player, and I’ve dedicated myself to that instrument. But I still have this beautiful Gibson acoustic (well, it used to be beautiful — I played it so much in the past that it’s kind of beatup now), and it’s going to waste sitting there in its case. I don’t want to sell it, and it’s the one guitar I’ve owned that I’ve steadfastly refused to pawn. But I may have finally figured out what to do with it.
My cousin. The son of my mom’s sister. He’s 10+ years younger than me, and he’s a much, MUCH better guitarist than I’ve ever been. He also builds custom electric guitars. So last time I talked to him, via Facebook, I asked if he could build a bass to my specifications. He said, “Sure, I could do that”. And I offered to trade him this Gibson acoustic for such a bass. He expressed temptation at the offer. He’s not currently building guitars, due to a hand injury, but I hope to bring the subject up again. Passing the guitar to him would at least keep it “in the family”. Cousin Mike is actually too young to remember Grandpa Jim, but he’s heard stories about him.
Alternatively, my 12-year-old niece has shown a glimmer of interest in playing guitar, and has taken some lessons through school, but I haven’t determined just how serious she is about it. If she’s truly serious, I’d happily give the guitar to her.
ETA: I have never been able to determine exactly when this particular guitar was built, but I’ve learned that this particular model was only built between 1963 and 1973. So it’s somewhere between 40 and 50 years old.
I have a ‘Big Bertha’ carbide cannon that I got when I was about 8 yrs old. 
I move about a lot, teaching overseas, so i’ve whittled my personal possessions down to the bare minimum to keep storage back home as small as possible. They’re all now in a medium sized box in my parents’ attic, along with a large suitcase of clothes that I pick from depending on which climate I’ll be going to.
Apart from my original birth certificate (important for visas) my earliest possession is a clapperboard, from a thing I did for educational video for Germans to help them speak English, when I was 12. I then had no intentions of doing it as a profession and received no encouragement in my early 30s when I changed career.
I’ve never thought about that before, this post has been unexpected.
I have a number of rocks in my collection that my mother collected as a child. I like to tell people I started collecting rocks before I was born 
I nearly forgot about this one… I have a credit card in my name that says “Member since 1959”. I was born in 1960. 
(My Dad opened the account right before I was born.)
My birth certificate?
I don’t think it’s the oldest, but I can’t think of anything older - my Leatherman PST II, bought in around 2000. I still carry it almost everywhere. I think the reason it’s stuck so long is it’s useful, but I don’t use it enough to wear it out.
My step-grandfather gave me this extremely fragile porcelain fisherman when I was 4 years old. At the time he still worked on a fishing boat.
The fact that I still have it, intact and in excellent condition 47 years later is very important to me.
I think it’s the dresser in my room which I believe has been with me all 27 years of my being.
And we *never *go out during the day…
The oldest thing I possess is my dining room table, made in 1934. I only owned it since 1985. It came with our first house.
I have the Bible my folks gave me for my eighth birthday, so I have owned it since 1964.
Regards,
Shodan
Cool - families are complicated; good to hear you are thinking of ways to keep it in yours. If you know the model, I’d be interested to hear what kind it is.
In terms of possessions - I still have my first electric - a 1970’s Fender Lead 1, which I totally Frankenstein’d out during the Eddie Van Halen days. Completely unsellable, but fun - my son used it for a while. Had it, oh 35 years or so?
I collected pocket knives and pocket watches with my dad when I was a kid - I have a couple of 1930’s Winchester pocket knives and a couple of European pocket watches (nothing fancy or valuable, but cool) from those days. Have had them almost 40 years. Good memories.
My teddy bear named Pitot Bear (I may have named him Peter, and said it Pedo, but that’s a pretty unsavoury meme these days so pitot it is) :0) . Had him since I was a newborn. He might be a Steiff but his tag is long worn away and, really, I don’t care because he’s not for sale.
He now sits up on my dresser with his new best buddy, Magnus, my SOs teddy bear.
