[QUOTE=mamakat]
I have a human skull my great aunt dug up when her house was being built. It creeps me out just a bit, but I don’t know what to do with it! I had the leg bone and part of the pelvis, too, but they mystriously dissappeared…oooooh!
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I’ll take it. My skeleton would probably appreciate having a human skull again.
Piece of the Berlin Wall
What I think is a stone age arrow head/chiselling type thingy
Lava from Etna
A WW2 Iron Cross, 2nd class
A German Officers peaked cap, also WW2
A Hitler youth dagger without scabbard
A collection of miniature British phone booths, 12 in all each about 2" high
[QUOTE=LouisB]
I have an antique cream pitcher shaped like a duck billed platypus. My mother assured me it would be “worth a lot of money someday.”
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I would snatch it up in a heartbeat if I saw it for sale. I’m a sucker for antique esoteric-animal-anything.
I have a piece of yellow legal paper with ALL (sans the goalies) the autographs of the 1997 Stanley cup chapion Detroit RedWings…personalized to my two boys…
Mail order tickets from the last three nights of a six night stand of Grateful Dead shows at the Boston Gardens…this was to be the last event at the Gardens before demolition…sadly Jerry died the DAY I got them.
A set of russian nesting dolls (really russian) painted in my sons Hockey team sweaters with all his former numbers…the faces look stoicaly russian.
I really onlyhave two pretty rare items that come to mind right now…A killer whale tooth…a Casio Cosmo watch that shows accurately the position of all planets circling the sun (well, at least the traditional 9 planets) and Haley’s comet, all circling the sun…
Can I count something I used to own? A bullet shot by William Burroughs. I lost it in San Francisco. If any Califonia Dopers happen upon it, I’d really like it back.
Human skull…yada, yada, yada…got one of those.
Fossils…yawn, whatever. However…
I have a large collection of coral bits (I was staying on a beach where about 40,000 new pieces washed up every morning, broken by the surf off the nearby reef.) in the shape of letters. Some upper case, some lower case, all of which occured naturally.
I stayed on the beach for about 4 wks, it started quite innocent really. Whenever I would walk the beach I pick things up and go, “Hey, look a ‘q’.”, yeah, no one really cared.
Soon, I could spell a couple of words out on my bungalow porch. The first phrase I could construct : Lazy, lazy, fool. And I was hooked. I never walked the beach that I wasn’t on the watch.
And then it spread through the community like an infection. People were bringing me letters they’d found on the beach. People I’d never met, it seems, were stopping by the porch (where the letters were but one pile of accumulating sea treasure. There were seashells, of course. Sea shell bits. Sea glass. Skeletal remains. Feathers. Well, I’m sure you get the picture).
In no time I had a whole alphabet. But you can’t spell much with only one of each letter so it grew and grew. Phrase became sentence, sentence neared paragraph.
When it was time to leave the beach it was clear I could not take back all the treasure I’d collected. What to leave? What to take? Of course, feathers and seashells are gifts from the God’s so they had to go. I toyed with leaving the now large collection of letters behind, but in the end I couldn’t do it.
It came home in my luggage and now resides in a tray on my porch. But I am still enchanted with them and often spell out greetings for guests and special occasions.
Though largely the world doesn’t understand their purpose or my attraction to them, with a little encouragement they grow as enchanted as I with them.
I’d be willing to bet I’m the only person with such a collection and it would definitely qualify as my most unique possession.
Unique: a wooden bird that my dad carved when he was a kid.
Strange: an uncut key from Disneyland (no clue as to how I got it; as a kid [when I collected keys] I didn’t know anyone who worked there).
elbows, the coral letters sound just fantastic!
[QUOTE=Walloon]
The autographed typescript of a poem Ray Bradbury wrote for me.
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I’ve got an autographed manuscript from Isaac Asimov.
A wire recorder (in need of minor repairs)
An award commemorating 15 years of diode matrix manufacturing by Radiation Incorporated.
A clay pipe done in preColumbian style. A man is sitting on the bowl and the stem is a snake protruding from between his legs. To smoke the pipe you have to perform oral sex on the man /kiss a snake
Oh I forgot to mention my Stevie Ray Vaughn autograph. It was written on a slip of paper that had a friends name and phone number on the other side. It has a little tear where the pen went through the paper. I had to turn around and he used my shoulder like a table. He was quite short.
WWI officer’s binoculars (wth original leather strap)
A turn or the century stapler.
An ornate barometer/thermometer
A ‘Bo’ stick
An incense burner shaped like a kneeling camel
A ‘star wars’ poster that says ‘Revenge of The Jedi’
Chinese artwork inlaid book-ends
A complete works of Shakespeare in olde english (circa 1920s)
A pair of pliers that were hand-forged on an anvil (pre-1920s)
An Atari 800 Computer (still works)
A TI-99 Computer (not so much)
A one foot by 3 feet cardboard poster of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale for President, in Spanish. “Para Neuvo Commienzo” (still hope to get that autographed someday)
A Pinewood Derby trophy from 1973
A sterling money-clip circa 1950s engraved with “After Taxes”
[QUOTE=Mach Tuck]
A “Tapper” arcade game from the 1980’s.
It was my favorite when I was a kid, and it has a unique controller - a beer tap. I’m actually looking to sell it because it no longer goes with my decor…
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I would be interested in buying this if you want to sell it. My email is in my profile.
I don’t really own anything unique. At least nothing as exciting as mammoth hairs or human skulls.
Wow am I mundane. The most interesting thing I have might be the metal plates used to print photos in the newspaper of my parents and friends posing at a dance in the early 60s. Grandpa was the society photographer and must have purloined the plates.
The thumb of a man I killed in Reno.
Janet Jackson’s nipple plate.
elbows could you post a picture of your letters for us? Your collection sounds really neat!
The only thing remotely unique I own is an antique cricket bat signed by Ade Edmonson (a famous British comedian). He was nice enough to sign a bat that I bought on eBay and send it back to me.
Only I don’t have it yet. Sent it out in May and according to his agent the bat is still at his house waiting to be returned to her so she can return it to me. Hopefully I have it by Christmas 
Since I don’t own anything fun, exciting or unique I thought about what I’d WANT to own that would be fun, exciting and unique and that is what I came up with. Technically I own it…it’s just slow coming home.
The alien head display from Alien Pops lollipops
A can of tomatoes autographed by John Astin
A lighter made from some kind of high caliber bullet
A ceramic face with eyes made of partially melted shards of glass
The official All My Children boardgame
A Lego telephone
Seriously though, a drawing of Cerebus the Aardvark, drawn for me by the author 20 years ago.
A collapisble top hat.
[QUOTE=MixieArmadillo]
I would snatch it up in a heartbeat if I saw it for sale. I’m a sucker for antique esoteric-animal-anything.
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Are there many like you? My mother had quite a collection of things like this; my oldest niece inherited them.
