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What are the Oldest Objects you Own?

DNO

One Too Many
Messages
1,815
Location
Toronto, Canada
Speaking of stones...I forgot the stone adze that I found while doing a bit of field walking years ago. Local museum (ROM) dated it from 500 to 5000 years old. (kind of tough to date stone First Nations tools)

I have some low value Roman coins around here somewhere...lost in a drawer. Nothing as spectacular as the ones that have been posted so far!
 

HodgePodge

One of the Regulars
Messages
264
Location
Canada
Speaking of stones...I forgot the stone adze that I found while doing a bit of field walking years ago. Local museum (ROM) dated it from 500 to 5000 years old. (kind of tough to date stone First Nations tools)

My aunt had some first nations pieces looked at and some of the tools were hard to date, but I can't remember if that is because they were always made in the same manner and shape (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?), or if because regular use always smoothed away signs of production process. However, most of the arrowheads could be dated to a fairly narrow century or millenia because of distinct changes in overall shape, nuances in knapping, and skill level of the craftsmanship from one period to the next. The archaeologist that looked at them felt some of the pieces indicated a "dark age" or at least the loss of a craftsman in a particular area due to a lesser quality in a one of the sets of arrowheads. She said she had a bit of an antiques roadshow, "wait, those are how old?!" moment when he told her the eras of these bits and pieces the family has had sitting in a box in the basement for 60-odd years and thinking they might be 400-500 years old.
 

Tyler Lange

New in Town
Messages
9
I have my Great Great-Grandpa's old desk in my room; Family lore says it's from when he was a Senator in Illinois down in Springfield and the desk is actually from the old capital building during the Civil War. Alas, no amount of research has been able to verify that that's where it came from. I mean, it definitely has the age to it, just no way to prove where its from!

Also, it weighs about 300 pounds so I can't really do anything with the damn thing!
 

Olivander

New in Town
Messages
12
Location
Rochester, MN
The oldest man-made thing I have is probably a Chinese coin from c.1750. The oldest mechanical object is a Seth-Thomas OG clock which was bought new by my g-g-g-grandfather in 1848 (yes, it still runs).

Since my primary collecting focus is typewriters, my oldest typewriter is a c.1886 Caligraph No.2.

rrnrbk.jpg
 

DNO

One Too Many
Messages
1,815
Location
Toronto, Canada
My aunt had some first nations pieces looked at and some of the tools were hard to date, but I can't remember if that is because they were always made in the same manner and shape (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?), or if because regular use always smoothed away signs of production process. However, most of the arrowheads could be dated to a fairly narrow century or millenia because of distinct changes in overall shape, nuances in knapping, and skill level of the craftsmanship from one period to the next. The archaeologist that looked at them felt some of the pieces indicated a "dark age" or at least the loss of a craftsman in a particular area due to a lesser quality in a one of the sets of arrowheads. She said she had a bit of an antiques roadshow, "wait, those are how old?!" moment when he told her the eras of these bits and pieces the family has had sitting in a box in the basement for 60-odd years and thinking they might be 400-500 years old.

I found a number of stone tools in the same area...a hilltop near Lindsay Ontario...many years ago. It's always fascinated me that these artifacts laid there, perhaps buried and recently brought to the surface, for at least hundreds of years before little old me stumbled on them. I was still in my early teens and already bitten by the history bug...but something like this just set the hook, so to speak.
 

jkingrph

Practically Family
Messages
848
Location
Jacksonville, Tx, West Monroe, La.
I have a few pieces of mozaic tiles, from Philidelphia, in Turkey, one of the 7 Churches of Asia Minor.

A friend brought them back with him when he returned to the states a few months ahead of us in 1974, and them when we returned he sent them to me. I think it was illegal there a the time and I had no desire to have problems with the Turks. The are currently made into a paperweight.

Somewhere I have a few old US coins, one with an 1860 date. Then I have a Swiss Vetterli rifle dated 1873.
 

Shangas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,116
Location
Melbourne, Australia
The oldest man-made thing I have is probably a Chinese coin from c.1750. The oldest mechanical object is a Seth-Thomas OG clock which was bought new by my g-g-g-grandfather in 1848 (yes, it still runs).

Since my primary collecting focus is typewriters, my oldest typewriter is a c.1886 Caligraph No.2.

rrnrbk.jpg

That's a beautiful machine!

How about a photograph or two of the clock?
 

scottyrocks

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,178
Location
Isle of Langerhan, NY
The oldest man-made thing I have is probably a Chinese coin from c.1750. The oldest mechanical object is a Seth-Thomas OG clock which was bought new by my g-g-g-grandfather in 1848 (yes, it still runs).

Since my primary collecting focus is typewriters, my oldest typewriter is a c.1886 Caligraph No.2.

rrnrbk.jpg

Oh, that is just too cool!
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
Like Lizzie, I have some fossils...mainly trilobites and shark's teeth...that are a bazillion years old. I also have some projectile points that I found on my property. Most of them are the Morrow Mountain type, which I understand to be 5000 to 7000 years old. And I have some Native American pottery shards that I found in the river bank where my land runs along the Trent River. I think the shards are much younger than the projectile points. I think they are only a thousand or so years old. I guess people have been living on my property for quite a long time now...

Jumping ahead, I have a Springfield smoothbore musket from 1849…made just after the Mexican War…and a pile of dug-up relics from the American Civil War...and a Yankee soldier’s New Testament…and a letter home from a Confederate soldier, too.

I have a bunch of North Carolina pottery and North Carolina duck decoys…mostly made during the period between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of WWII. I used to collect both pottery and decoys until I was priced out of the market.

I have a bunch of WWII stuff. Helmets, a carbine, a couple of .303 Enfields, some web gear and who knows what else. And going forward to the fifties, I have a pile of flight jackets and a few Stetsons from that era.

Finally….I have 1955 vintage me.

AF
 

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