a field knife that belonged to our grandfather (1972?)
baby/kid pictures of our parents (1929-1935,)
my uncle’s “short history of england” by edward cheyney which i browse right here in the office (c. 1932)
I have some ~200 000 year-old stone tools.
i can never remember their time frames: were they proper humans 200,000 yrs ago or somewhere in the middle of the line (taller and straighter going to the right but not necessarily better-looking?)
Anatomically human but not necessarily cognitively or behaviourally modern (these are Acheulean artifacts from South Africa - other Acheulean stuff is generally Neanderthal).
I should emphasise that while they are in my possession, I don’t really “own” them sensu strictu, as all that type of thing belongs to the State as a whole. But since their context was erased before I got them, their scientific value is greatly lessened so I’ll keep them until someone asks.
A stone axe from around the 4th millennium BCE. My grandfather found it as a kid when he was helping out plowing the fields.
Reaching a LONG way back a stone age ax I purchased. Time? A long one. 10s of thousands of years?
Shorter: Some Roman coins with dirt still on them. Kind of neat to have.
Neither of the above are what you’d call rare. They’re sort of the trilobites of the older world.
More recent and, to me, valuable? A 1600s indenture written on sheepskin and still maintaining the original wax seals. Now that was a find.
Innumerable hand written letters and diaries, as well. The oldest goes back to about 1790 or so. It’s fun to get inside peoples heads and try to understand how they lived and thought.