# Your oldest possession **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 25, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584 "2009-12-25T21:53:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/41 "2009-12-26T19:00:55Z")
> [@Surly\_Chick](#): > > My house was built in 1750. My house was built a little before 1760. No offense, but I prefer new construction like mine over your 1750 model. The cooking hooks in the fireplaces are so much more convenient for making big pots of gruel. I am a sucker for the latest and greatest technology that way though. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/42 "2009-12-26T20:14:23Z")
Well aren’t we all fancy-scmancy?! In my day we didn’t need cooking hooks. We just held the pots in our hands over the fire and we _ **liked** _ it! ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/43 "2009-12-26T20:22:46Z")
I have a badly-worn copy of a souvenir program from the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was held in Chicago in 1893. I also own some stamps and postcards with nineteenth-century cancels, but I’m not sure if any of them predate the souvenir book, and can’t check them right now, as they’re still in my old bedroom at my parents’ house in Ohio. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/44 "2009-12-26T21:32:28Z")
I have a book purchased by an ancestor in 1856. It is still in beautiful condition. I also have a spinning wheels at least 160 years old. Still in working condition. I also have some fossils that, like **Qadgop’s** , are about 250 million years old. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/45 "2009-12-26T22:58:26Z")
What I love about this place is: Nobody’s come in and seriously said ‘nothing is older than 6000 years old’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/46 "2009-12-26T23:32:27Z")
I have some fine china that was manufactured in the 1800’s, wedding presents to my great-grandparents. They were married about 1880. I also have a chair that my great-grandfather made my hand which is also from the late 1800’s. On the other side of the family, I have my grandfather’s pocket watch, circa 1910. I have some old coins as well. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/47 "2009-12-27T00:54:44Z")
Just remembered that I have a stone spearpoint from St. Paul Island that is likely many hundreds of years old. ---
**Author:** ![Osip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4491bb/32.png) [@Osip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osip)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/48 "2009-12-27T02:38:41Z")
I have a dutch book titled (thanks Coldie) “The history of the Catholic Church up to modern times.” It was published in the 1680’s. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/49 "2009-12-27T03:49:09Z")
I also have a sea chest that some antique dealer decided to refinish and sold to me for $400.00 dollars. Guess he (and I) didn’t know to leave that chest as it was. Or maybe he did. Plus (before the HARD times), I was able to present close friends with illuminated pages that Monks wrote in the 16th century. Q ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/50 "2009-12-27T04:12:27Z")
Had the longest: a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife I was given by my dad when I was 7 (I’m now 27). Oldest: I have some coins from the turn of the century. Somewhere in a steamer trunk in a relative’s house in England is a fossilized moth or butterfly (never had it looked at by a professional, so I’ve got no idea how old it really is). ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/51 "2009-12-27T04:53:45Z")
I have some silver dollars from the 1800s, but I’d have to go look to find the earliest - and I’m way too lazy tonight to do so. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/52 "2009-12-27T07:28:25Z")
I don’t have anything antique. I still have a few items from my college days – some books and my bong. 😛 More than 30 years old now… ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/53 "2009-12-27T07:35:33Z")
The thing I’ve probably owned the longest is a cabage patch kid from [the year that people went nuts](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921419,00.html) and beat people up over. I’m 32, and I got him when I was 6. The oldest object I own at all that gets used every day is the bench from my great-grandmother’s sewing desk: it sits beside my computer chair for as a table for my mouse. It’s from the early to mid 1940s, puting it at bit more than twice my age. I have a table topped with blue glass from the 1940s or 50s too. There are older things in the house, including wine glasses from pre-WII, hurricane lanterns from the turn of the century, and a couple of cookbooks from the 1800s, but those are not mine. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/54 "2009-12-27T10:01:29Z")
Natural, I have bags and boxes of rocks, gems and fossils whose ages are a mystery to me, but I’m guessing old. Man-made, I have my great-great grandfather’s navy bible dated 1758. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/55 "2009-12-27T15:48:32Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I’m typing this in a house built in 1743, so I guess that’s my oldest possession. > [@SurlyChick](#): > > My house was built in 1750. > [@](#): > > My house was built a little before 1760. No offense, but I prefer new construction like mine over your 1750 model. The cooking hooks in the fireplaces are so much more convenient for making big pots of gruel. I am a sucker for the latest and greatest technology that way though. Oh, look, the _nouveau riche_ have arrived. I hope you realize that all that new construction will just bring down prices in the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/56 "2009-12-27T17:33:22Z")
I have a tiny beat-up fairy perched on my Christmas tree. It is 68.8 years old, same as me. My gramps bought it the day I was born and it’s been handed on down through the years ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/57 "2009-12-27T17:48:00Z")
I own my ancient, worn out body and that’s about it. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/58 "2009-12-27T19:51:08Z")
An apparently salacious medieval romance novel from 1869. “Apparently” because I have yet to read it, I just read some details about it online. ---
**Author:** ![Furry\_Mongoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Furry\_Mongoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furry_Mongoose)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/59 "2009-12-27T22:53:18Z")
I have a copy of the book Swiss Family Robinson, given to one of my relatives at the end of the school year in 1901. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584/60 "2009-12-28T01:45:07Z")
As for my own personal possessions, I found a book called _The Best Short Stories of 1918_ in a box someone at school was going to sell to Half-Priced Books. I snatched it up. In my family we have a four-generation photograph of women from my mother’s side, circa 1897. The youngest person in the photo is my great-grandmother, who was seven years old at the time. Then it’s her mother, her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother. So I can say that I know what my great great great great grandmother looked like. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-oldest-possession/522584.md?page=4)