# What's The Oldest Thing You Use Everyday?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 19, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449 "2011-11-19T13:25:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/21 "2011-11-19T16:11:09Z")
Probably my nightstand. We bought them about 25 years ago.
Not quite what you’re asking for, but I did get about 20 seasons of winter from a favorite sweater my Grandmother gave me. I wore it at least weekly and just threw it in the machine. It finally gave up the ghost two winters ago. I miss that sweater.
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### Author:  [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/22 "2011-11-19T16:27:22Z")
I have a rock that I use as a paperweight for my desk at home. It’s gotta be at least a couple million years old.😉
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### Author:  [@Cryptic\_C62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptic_C62)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/23 "2011-11-19T16:27:53Z")
The sidewalks in Boston.
Some of them look like they were built before the pyramids…
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### Author:  [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/24 "2011-11-19T16:38:31Z")
The 3 pound mini-sledge in my toolbox. It’s at least as old as me. Used to be my dad’s. so, 28 years?
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### Author:  [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/25 "2011-11-19T16:58:21Z")
My computer desk. My parents bought it from an auction in the 50s when they were first married, and used it for years as a kitchen table. I only remember it being in the laundry room, next to the dryer, and used for folding clothes.
My mother says it’s a “Library Table” and that it came from a university library. She says it dates to at least the late teens or early 20s.
It’s really nothing special. Very simple square table, perfect for two, but could seat four (one on each side, but a bit crowded), and I have two chairs that go with it. Again, nothing special, simple wooden chairs, but quite sturdy and actually pretty comfy, for wooden chairs.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/26 "2011-11-19T17:09:14Z")
Another vote for “my wife.”
Seriously though, we have a set of steak knives we bought on our honeymoon. That’s 23+ years ago now. We use them pretty much every day with one meal or another.
I own things older than that, but they aren’t everyday use items. The oldest items are hand tools I bought new in college, say 33-ish years ago.
I don’t think I own anything I didn’t purchase new. Buying used items or receiving things handed down from prior generations is just not on my list.
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/27 "2011-11-19T17:10:13Z")
I sleep in my great grandfather’s bed- late 1800’s or early 1900’s.
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/28 "2011-11-19T17:25:38Z")
I have a chandelier over my dining room table. I think it is well over 100 yds old as it was over my grandparents dining room table when my dad was a kid. He is 90 yrs.
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### Author:  [@Lilacs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilacs)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/29 "2011-11-19T17:48:00Z")
I have my mom’s tupperware bowls she bought in the 60’s. They’re pretty old and a little warped but they are still usable.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/30 "2011-11-19T17:59:05Z")
4.5 billion years. The Sun.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/31 "2011-11-19T18:11:42Z")
Most of my bedroom furniture is about 130 years old.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/32 "2011-11-19T18:26:11Z")
13.2 billion years. The natural laws of the space/time continuum.
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### Author:  [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/33 "2011-11-19T18:52:41Z")
My dining furniture, my chest of drawers, the little plant stand we use as a side table in the den, my steamer trunk, the barristers bookcase, and one of my skillets date from around 1870-90. My engagement ring is about 90 years old. I own (and wear) clothes older than I am. I like old stuff, and will own and use more antiques quite happily. (And soon, too. The in-laws are getting rid of a sweet little walnut drop leaf table, and I told Tony to call “dibs” if no one else wanted it. Don’t know exactly how old it is, because it was something that my grandmother-in-law received as an in-kind payment during her career as a country doctor, but I’d judge 1850 or so. Each of the three parts of the tabletop are made of just one plank of walnut, about 1.5 inches thick. It will be perfect for extra seating when we have big holiday gatherings.)
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### Author:  [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/34 "2011-11-19T18:58:12Z")
There’s a dot matrix printer we’re stuck using at work that must be 35-40 years old. I can’t believe we can still get ribbons for it!
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/35 "2011-11-19T19:20:40Z")
My house, with I’ve lived in since 1979, and which was built in 1948.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/36 "2011-11-19T19:29:47Z")
I’m honestly hard pressed to come up with anything interesting here. If it’s something old, I rarely use it, and if I use it 5 days a week, it’s probably not much older that 5 years (like my computer monitor, or my glasses).
Hrmmm.
Well, okay, my house was built in '78, but that stretching the term of “use”. It’s where I live.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/37 "2011-11-19T19:41:25Z")
I have an end table that belonged to my grandfather, it’s at least 50 years old.
Next oldest thing is probably my watch, I got it in high school making it 20+ years old.
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/38 "2011-11-19T19:45:21Z")
Huh. It’s been funny to realise nearly nothing I use daily is really old, except my house from 1929. I guess I didn’t bring anything from home and my parents are alive, so I haven’t inherited anything yet, either. That means I bought virtually everything I own myself.
I guess the oldest thing that gets regular use (about once every three weeks) is the 1973 cookbook I stole from my parents house when I moved out. It is very comprehensive, and I like it a lot. Whenever I find myself with an odd vegetable, or wondering how to make something as basic as mushroom soup, I use that book. I even bought a spare one on Ebay, for when this one really falls apart.
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### Author:  [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/39 "2011-11-19T19:49:12Z")
My computer desk used to be two separate pieces, a desk and a set of drawers that one of my Mom’s relatives assembled into one unit. I’m not sure how old it is - possibly 80-100 years or so.
I’m doing an internship with a bookbinder who uses cast iron book presses from the 1700s on a daily basis. They really haven’t changed at all. As long as they’re protected from rust they’ll probably be perfectly usable a thousand years from now. It’s really strange to be studying techniques and materials that are measured by how many hundred years the resulting book will survive before the paper turns into dust. Then I remember that I’ll only be around for another eighty years, tops. I won’t live to find out how well my books survive, no bookbinder ever has.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-oldest-thing-you-use-everyday/603449/40 "2011-11-19T19:49:23Z")
My house was built in 1870. That’s 171 years old, HA! Newest is my baby, who is a month old today. 😃
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