Posted on 02/15/2016 6:24:28 PM PST by jy8z
I saw this question posed by a fellow FReeper in answer to another Freeper today. I thought it would make for an interesting topic. I do not remember who it was so I can't attribute it to them.
I think the oldest thing I have is some Japanese scrip from WW2 that had been my dad’s. They are “Japanese pesos”, issued in the Philippines during the war.
I do have a tiny piece of the Barringer meteorite.
A Hall’s Rifle conversion from flintlock to percussion 1828 that was issued to Confederate troops in Corinth, Mississippi, prior to the Battle of Shiloh.
Meteorites, unless from one of the rocky planets, and even then, are in the *billions* of years. Most are from the original material that the planets themselves were made. Our solar system is roughly 5 billion years old.
I have a coin from the Phoenicia-Tyre.
Shekel dated 1265BC-AD65 BU.
The rocking chair my grandmother rocked my father in when he was a baby, in 1932. Can’t date the chair itself exactly, but I have no doubt it is more than a hundred years old.
I have books that are older, but they don’t mean anything to me compared to the chair.
woolly mammoth ivory duck carving
Now that I think about it, I still want a fish fossil or maybe a bird.
I have a rice bowl from the Song Dynasty, don’t know if it is Northern or Southern Song. Probably worth $150 or so, use it in tea ceremony.
I’ve got a friend who loves really old stuff like Roman era coins and shards of pottery and such. Myself? I’m much more modest in my collection, but some of it’s pretty cool.
An 1885 silver dollar
A large wooden armoire from the late 1800s
an oaken Kitchen table & chairs from the 1920s
a pen (inkwell variety) from the end of WWI, depicting a soldier in a gas mask and the date of the armistice (11/11)
A Pabst tapered beer glass from (probably) the 1930s.
My grandfather’s gold 1920 pocketwatch
My dad’s 1950s slide-rule that helped design the heat shield that protected the first object ever recovered from orbit.
a $2 bill from the 1920s that is printed in black and red ink, rather than the later green ink.
Many family photos from 1915 era (Europe), where I can identify all the participants (my Mom has all the original birth/death/baptism/marriage certificates back to the early/mid 1800s, which is quite a feat coming out of Europe)
Got a jar full of arrowheads collected over the years, they’d just be laying there on the ground after spring plowing. No idea how old they might be, I’d guess 500 years or more since this area was largely depopulated when English surveyors and Swiss botanists first came through.
In the case of Irons, they could be 2 times that old. Whenever the first sun went Nova.
That beats me!
I have a silver Marcus Aurelius denarius... I bought it during the silver excitement of 1980.
And a few other Roman coins.
...except that we of course don’t actually OWN the atoms of which we are made. They will continue on until the end of time, and space.
Very cool. Do you play?
There are katana conventions around the country, someone could tell you the origin of the swords there.
I just remembered that I was given a Roman coin in fairly poor condition around 1960. The guy who gave it to me said it actually was only worth a few dollars as there was still a lot of them around.
Not sure when it was minted.
My faith in Christ. Goes back to God’s decrees in eternity past.
That’s fantastic, where did you find it?
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