What are the Oldest Objects you Own?

[gtdean48]

Petrified sharks tooth found on the bluffs on the Flint River....

 

[Unlucky Berman]

The oldest objects I own are coins like those I used as background with this (also old) watch. The two from the right side are ancient greek coins from south italian colonies. The upper right is a bronze Litra from Syracus and ca. 400 BC, the one below it is a silver Triobol from Thurioi and ca. 330-270 BC. The one on the left it roman and from the time of emperor Maxentius, the one who fell against Constantine, so somewhen around anno domini 300. I own other ancient coins but the two greek here are my oldest pieces.

 

[Chas]

A copy of Homer's Iliad published in 1793 and has been in the family for a long, long time.

 

[Shangas]

Now THAT is impressive! Any pictures?

 

[Oldsarge]

This is me with mine.

 

[DNO]

This is me with mine.

Interesting clip. Thanks for posting. Terrific artifact as well!

I've run into the same dating issue, i.e. 'pre-contact', with some stone tools I have found. They're very difficult to date.

 

[alanfgag]

Campo del Cielo meteorite - "discovered" in the 16th century, made a big impression 4-5,000 years ago, from an asteroid 4.6 billion years old or thereabouts.

Had a friend who said,

"...whatever... my planet is about that old."

a few geeks shown for scale:

 

[Giftmacher]

ca. 100 million years old fossil starfish or sea urchin, I'm not sure

 

[alanfgag]

wonderful!

 

[Giftmacher]

Yes, but I like your meteorite more

 

[Fawkes]

Hmmm...the oldest object I own would be an American Waltham Watch Co. hunter case from approx. 1863 according to the serial number in it. It was my father's but when he passed away a few years ago I inherited it. I'll see if I can find a picture of it.

 

[Katzenjammer]

This children's book is probably the oldest thing I own (that can be accurately dated). It's from 1881.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I have a stone animal figure from a temple in SE Asia Older then 1500 CE and perhaps as early as 400 CE.

 

[Bonked]

Various Native American arrowheads who knows how old and a couple of Roman coins.

 

[robrinay]

I've got some stone age flint arrowheads, knives and scrapers, from the Namibian Desert in North Africa. I bought a set from an antique dealer at the Newark Antiques Fair. He'd collected them some years ago when he was in the military and worked over there. He said they were pretty common around ancient water holes, now dried up. I'd love to get a flint hand axe but the ones I see on eBay are way too expensive or are cheap but fake.

 

[Hat Dandy]

Not counting archeological artifacts, I own a Ball pocket watch, which is at least from the early 20's.

 

[alanfgag]

Three iron meteorites, from (front to back) Argentina, Morocco, Siberia.

 

[31 Model A]

My Great Grandmother's coo-coo clock. She came over on a clipper ship when she was six in 1866 with mother and grandmother. It's the oldest and most remembered family heirloom from her and has been passed down from generation to generation. Exactly how old, not known, pre-1900 for sure....it still works and keeps perfect time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They're excavating for a new building out behind the theatre, on a site that was once a busy business block, and yesterday I found, on a pile of rubble, an old green-glass bottle labeled "PHILLIPS PALATABLE COD-LIVER OIL WITH PHOSPHO-NUTRITIES." This was a product popular in the early 1880s, around the time a livery stable was being built on the site. I bet those horses were hopping when suppertime came around.

Not the oldest artifact I own, but one of the more interesting. I also salvaged a soot-blackened brick which is likely a remnant of the 1920 fire that destroyed the entire block.

They also unearthed an abandoned cistern dating to 1850, which they immediately filled in as a safety hazard.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Lizzie's post reminded me of these things.

Several years ago, the the city of New Bern tore up the street in front of my office to replace the water main. When the pavement grinder (I know it must have a real name) removed two hundred years of asphalt, we found that Broad Street had originally been paved with a zillion of these bricks. They're larger and harder than normal building bricks and each is embossed with its brick factory's name. Evidently, several factories provided bricks for the project including "Baltimore Block" and "Carlyle and Sciotoville Block". I walked outside and snagged these two examples to use as door stops.

Then, not long after the street project, the courthouse roof had to be replaced. The courthouse was built in 1887 and the original slate shingles were beginning to leak and fall off during hurricanes. So down came thousands of heavy, weathered, 19th century slate shingles only to be stacked for weeks almost everywhere around the courthouse square. One of our magistrates, who is a bit of an artist, gathered up a hundred or so of the less damaged shingles and painted a small picture of the courthouse on each one. I bought several to use as presents and I kept two for myself.

AF