# What is the oldest thing in your house? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 23, 2013, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502 "2013-09-23T10:48:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/101 "2013-09-26T16:28:11Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Forgot to mention this: our kitchen countertops are of Brazilian pink granite, from a deposit of 300 million years ago. > Top that! Sadly, unless the work on it was done 300 million years ago, I don’t think it counts. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/102 "2013-09-26T17:04:10Z")
My great-grandfather’s trunk, bought when he left for medical school: late 1880s. There’s some other old items at my mother’s, including some furniture which I know to be 19th century but not a date, some that she says is 18th century, and some books which are also 19th century (including a multi-volume Universal History which jumps from Genesis to the ancient Egyptians). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/103 "2013-09-26T17:14:02Z")
Stuff my aunt inherited from the same source as the items above (my paternal grandma) include some trays that are 17th and 18th century, some furniture whose age we don’t know but which came from the “stronghouse” (think a very small manor with very thick walls, large enough to house every villager and keep them fed for a month - it also housed the village’s grain stores) and a Baroque St Benedict which used to preside its chapel. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/104 "2013-09-26T17:26:02Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Forgot to mention this: our kitchen countertops are of Brazilian pink granite, from a deposit of 300 million years ago. > Top that! Only about 200 million years after Earth was formed, a shower of meteorites hit that are responsible for all the gold found in the planet’s mantle, what’s in your jewlry, electronics, coins, etc. But like **SciFiSam** says, that hardly fits the description in the _manmade_ OP. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/105 "2013-09-26T18:41:21Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Only about 200 million years after Earth was formed, a shower of meteorites hit that are responsible for all the gold found in the planet’s mantle, what’s in your jewlry, electronics, coins, etc. > > But like **SciFiSam** says, that hardly fits the description in the _manmade_ OP. :smack::smack::smack: So the dinosaur tooth I mention upthread doesn’t _remotely_ count, unless the acrylic it’s encased in is also 65 million years old. Sigh. So - yeah; a Roman coin, some 150-year-old books, Japanese prints, etc. I have an ~85-year-old guitar that I use regularly and plays like a dream, and other cool old stuff - having antique-dealer parents will do that… ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/106 "2013-09-26T23:28:27Z")
It’s a toss-up between a poi pounder I found in an abandoned house when I was a kid (it was being used to prop open a sagging door) and a stone skinning tool my wife found in the remains of a barabara (aleut sod house) on Kodiak Island. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502/107 "2013-09-27T18:02:28Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Probably my great-great-grandmother’s pestles. I’d have to look her up in the genealogy to give a circa, and I’d have to be home for that. Oh, yes. She was the one who was ordained by the [Indepenent Free Thought Bible Spiritualistic Society of San Francisco](http://theguiltlist.blogspot.com/2013/05/yes-last-boxes-from-idaho-are-being.html)in 1895. She may have had the pestles (and the mortars that went with them) before that, but it probably wouldn’t have been too long before. It would depend on whether she was working as an herbalist before or after she went into magnetic therapy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-thing-in-your-house/669502.md?page=5)