I was asking myself this because I have set Modge the challenge of getting me a Batman comic from Aug 1970 for my birthday. There's the added complication here that the August cover dated Batman would have come out in May or so, but you have to make allowances for that. I thought it would be interesting to have an object more or less exactly my age.

Then I thought: what proportion of things I own in this flat are actually older than me?

You try it! Here's my attempt, off the top of my head though I might look around more later. Reprints or reissues of things that were originally old, like my Sgt Pepper CD, don't count -- the artifact has to have been released to the public before the time of your birth.

• the flat itself; the fireplace, brickwork, and I presume most of the fittings like windows. So we can get that out of the way.
  
• a pea coat owned by my dad in the 1960s
  
• the Penguin Book of Comics from 1967
  
• a Catcher in the Rye from 1960
  
• a Hamlet from 1935
  
• Dubliners from 1955
  
• Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1956
  
• three Carroll biographies from 1947, 1952, 1954
  
• the oldest item is, I think, Stuart Collingwood's Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, third edition 1899.
  

Unless I'm missing something big, this is a pretty short list for someone into cultural history. My parents' record collection would have a lot of artefacts from the 1960s, but I don't own those...I've got a lot of reprints of comics and so on, but those don't count. I don't have any jewellery or heirlooms. Most of the objects around me are shiny silver things of a type where three years ago equals obsolete. The old-looking stuff I can see from my desk is yellowing newspapers from September 11th 2001. I suppose I am, after all, a "scholar" of contemporary culture for the most part.

It could also be said that I'm not young exactly, and I do have a catchment area of over three decades -- a ten year old might be more likely to possess items released before 1993, but who knows.

Am I unusual? Or are we a generation only interested in owning the new?
 

I have loads of old clothes. I used to love wearing my grandad's greatcoat, although it's a little warm for the current climate. I've also got a waaay old 9mm projector that my grandad and I fixed up about ten years ago, although I keep this at my parents house so maybe that's cheating by Kovax's rules. However, every time I go to my parents house I have to make a case for holding onto this object, rather than chucking it out, so I do have to take an active role in its survival.
 

Loads of books, as I have a habit of buying old books in second hand stores. The most notable one is a history book called Modern Europe, dated 1914, which has in the back loads of full colour maps of how things were through the 18th and 19th centuries. Amazing to see how many countries have faded away. I also have a first edition of The Old Man and the Sea, again bought in a second hand shop, but I can't remember the exact date of publication. Older than me though.

A sculpture by F E McWilliam, which I inherited, but I know nothing about it. I have a feeling that most of his work is from the sixties, but I don't know.

Hulk #180, which is the first appearance of Wolverine in a Marvel comic, from about 1970 I think.

A blanket that was bought for my christening.

The house itself, which is early 1900's.

That's about it I think.

I think there is something cool in owning old things. I don't know if I'm unusual in that, but none of my mates show any particular interest in things from the olden days.

edit for spilling.

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: My Name Is Joe ]
 

He'd been doing up an old gamekeeper's lodge and at first thought the garden path was made up of thick, circular clay tiles - when he dug them up he found they were the bases of several hundred of these vessels, dated and stamped and preserved underground for decades.

Coincidentally, I also have a very old copy of Sir Thomas Browne's Urn Buriall on one of my bookshelves.

Aside: I think I started a thread like this about 18 months ago - only to have Kovacs jeer at me, Ringo declare it the "most boring thread [he'd] ever read" and Tav denouncing me for not filling my house with antiques of sufficient elegance.
 

I have a collection of old cameras, ranging from the 1920s to the mid 70s. I also have a couple of leather jackets which I can only assume are older than me.

I like a mix of old and new, to be honest. Some items (such as cameras and some clothes) are no longer built like they used to be - or at least not for a sensible price. As mentioned in another thread, you could go out today and buy a 70s Olympus SLR camera in perfect working order - how much would today's equivalent cost?

Some things however, like my MP3 player, are best left to today's technology. I suppose I could buy a vintage walkman but for sheer functionality, nothing can touch the modern equivalent.

If I were to consider buying something old, I would need a good reason (even if it were simply style or price), but I'd never rule it out.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by My Name Is Joe:
Hulk #180, which is the first appearance of Wolverine in a Marvel comic, from about 1970 I think.

---

That one where Hulk's fighting Wendigo, and Wolverine comes in and has a crack at them both, and then Hulk thinks Wolverine is his friend, and then Wolverine tries to stab him in the face and then Wolverine gets chained up and then this bird's brother swaps places with the Wendigo curse thing, and she cries and Hulk puts a comforting arm around her shoulder?
 

I only have a few books from before 1971:
Howard Spring - I Met a Lady, 1968 (Price: 6'-)
P.G. Wodehouse - Laughing Gas, 1959 (Price: 2'6)
Raymond Chandler - Killer in the Rain, 1971 (Price: 40p)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby, 1964 (Price: 3'6)

I have a camera, an Ilford Sporti, that was made sometime in the 60s (I'm guessing). Most of the photos from my childhood, the funny square ones with that light and tone that only exists in photos from your infancy, were taken using this camera. I've half-inched it from my folks' house to see if that same light and tone can be recreated today.

I have two items of clothing from the 50s (I'm guessing again): a lovely dinner jacket and a now rather ragged dress shirt. I'm very fond of both of them.

I own a drumkit from the 60s, with that authentic Ringo Starr oyster-shell pattern. It looks lovely. It was originally owned by a working drummer from that period, and when he died his widow sold it off. A guy in Valencia saw it in the shop and then snapped it up. I bought it off him a couple of years ago.

One last item I would love to include is a monophonic analogue beast of a synthesizer, a Korg MS-20, which was first released in 1978, by which time I was seven years old. But look at it: it's beautiful.

Aphex Twin owns three of them. A modern version was released a couple of years ago, the MS-2000, but it doesn't have anywhere near as much character:

Old things are good things. Mostly.

Well, sometimes.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
That one where Hulk's fighting Wendigo, and Wolverine comes in and has a crack at them both, and then Hulk thinks Wolverine is his friend, and then Wolverine tries to stab him in the face and then Wolverine gets chained up and then this bird's brother swaps places with the Wendigo curse thing, and she cries and Hulk puts a comforting arm around her shoulder?

---

Sounds familiar, it's definitely set in Canada. To be fair Hulk #181 is more valuable as Wolvie is in the whole comic, and on the cover - in #180 he only appears in the final panel, and is named Weapon X. I bought it when I was about 14 and really into Wolverine. Now that I think about it, I would be hard pressed to find it if asked. Probably in a box somewhere with all the rest of my trappings of geekery!
 

quote:

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Originally posted by My Name Is Joe:
Hulk #181

---

Ah yes, that's the one I'm thinking of.
 

We collect so much old stuff..

I may well do a proper list at the weekend..
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by My Name Is Joe:
Do you have it?

---

I have it in the sense that it's included in the Hulk/ Wolverine comic 'Six hours' released earlier this year. So, no.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by kovacs:
I do also own a piece of petrified wood that a student brought me from a (the?) Saudi desert. That's probably millions of years old.

---

That would be cool. I remember being a bit awed by the petrified tree stump in The Natural History Museum. So old its hard to imagine.

I also have laods of photos now I think of it, of family members in their youth.
 

On my desk or in my bag here at work I don't seem to have anything more than about 5 years old at all. Even the pile of cds I brought in today are either fairly recent or remastered reissues.

Have a couple of genuine oldie records at home, but nothing as old as me (b.1965) and a few books which are older than me, and a National Savings book from when I was a baby. Don't know what to do with it really. It's got about 4 shillings in I think. Probably worth 10,000 quid by now, what with inflation and all that. No?

When we moved into our old house, we found a couple of Argos catalogues from about 1973 and 1978 I think it was. Amazing, and a bit disappointing, to find how similar they are to a modern Argos catalogue - even the tech stuff isn't that different, in looks at least. Except we now have CD and DVD and PC.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by kovacs:
I do also own a piece of petrified wood that a student brought me from a (the?) Saudi desert. That's probably millions of years old.

---

In fairness I don't think that counts - I mean, you could have some crystals or pebbles or stuff and they could be millions of years old, but they'd still be pretty dull. I think you have to restrict it to something that's man-made.
 

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: Spiderwoman2002 ]
 

1. a bottle green duffle coat that belonged to my grandmother which is lovely and cosy and protects me from the elements every winter.

2. a faux fur trimmed 1976 houndstooth belted coat from Wallis that my mother bought then couldn't wear as she was heavily pregnant with my brother.

3. a navy blue t-shirt with a big red strawberry on it, bought by my mother in Marks and Spencer in 1974.

4. a pale blue t-shirt with two cockerels on it, one with a "real" comb on top of its head, bearing the slogan 'dare to be different' again bought in about 1974 by my mum.

5. 2 programmes from the 1920s for performances by the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlos. 1 programme from the 1960s from a New York City Ballet performance at Covent Garden.

6. a 1960s book on Soviet Ballet.

7. Kovacs

8. Some old comics and records

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: Modge ]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ben:
In fairness I don't think that counts - I mean, you could have some crystals or pebbles or stuff and they could be millions of years old, but they'd still be pretty dull. I think you have to restrict it to something that's man-made.

---

I'm not sure I agree with this. One of the questions Kovacs asked was if old things were important to the current generation. It's true that rocks and so on are pretty insignificant, but thing like petrified wood, fossils and insects trapped in amber do have a sense of history (prehistory?) about them. Like I said earlier, the petrified stump in the NHM affected me quite deeply, but some old man made objects, such as crappy sixties buildings, mean nothing. Maybe it's to do with seeing something that was alive so very long ago, or it being recognisable.

For my vote, fossils in, rocks out.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by My Name Is Joe:
For my vote, fossils in...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Modge:
7. Kovacs

---

*^_^*
 

A large collection of pre-Snorton era books. There are at least fifty works from prior to 1960, so I will name just a few.

A 1941 edition of Guenther Prien's Mein Weg nach Scapa Flow
Hermann Kohl's Wir fliegen gegen England: Einsatz der Luftwaffe (1940)
A pristine-condition 1939 edition of Mein Kampf. Of course.
An 1881 edition of Aunt Charlotte's stories of Greek History
Beethoven by Frederick J. Crowest (1904)
One for Kovacs: The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass. There's no date, but it's clearly pre-1950s. Illustrations by Philip Gough.
Anna Sewell's Black Beauty: An autobiography of a horse (1902).
First edition Guinness Book of Records from 1955.

Add to that a number of pre 1970s records and a Banania tin from the 1950s with a smiling blacke guy. Like this:

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
 

quote:

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Originally posted by My Name Is Joe:
even your possessions are offensive...

---

Black Beauty is offensive?
 

Bleuugh.
 

• The house of which my flat is part: c1870
  
• Items of furniture of intderminate age, but which are probably older than me (a pine kitchen table, kitchen chairs, a wing armchair and a nursing chair I used to think was William Morris, but I realised that it was just covered in William Morris type fabric)
  
• A 1964 Penguin edition of Camus' Exile and the Kingdom
• A Langenscheidt's Taschen Wörterbücher English-German dictionary, given to my grandpa in 1935 as a school prize for French.
  
• Ooh, I forgot! A very pretty Victorian garnet and turquoise ring!
  

But people! Although you may not have anything much around you that has been manufactured in the pre-Ikea age, remember that everything is comprised of atoms that have been around since the dawn of time, for you can neither create nor destroy matter!

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: Gail ]
 

• My beautiful antique oak bed, a post-divorce present to myself
  
• An antique oak table.
  
• Some fabulous old fairy-tale books, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham, that were old even when my Mum was a little girl.
  
• Some other books of my Mum's - early Fifties paperbacks kinda thing.
  
• A chaise longue that I've just bought from the junk shop down the road
  
• The outside of my flat, though not much of the inside as I had to knock it all down & start again
  
• My Gran's ruby ring.
  
• If fossils count, then do the stones in my jewellery? If so, quite a few more list items.
  
• An antique carving set that was a present.
  
• Some candlesticks and stuff from my great aunt.
  
• Some other old stuff.
  

Actually, we all have lots of stuff older than we are ... Did you know that no part of your body is more than 12 years old?
(Carter please verify - or not, as the case may be!)

Ageing Grace.
 

Do I win £5?
 

quote:

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Originally posted by mimolette:
I've got some old stuff.

Do I win £5?

---

Just an invite to Antiques Roadshow Live.

Or a car boot sale.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by mimolette:
I've got some old stuff.

Do I win £5?

---

There you go...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
One for Kovacs: The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass. There's no date, but it's clearly pre-1950s. Illustrations by Philip Gough.

---

I'm afraid you possess a fake! Lewis Carroll's books are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

I see that Phillip Gough's edition was 1949.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Well, I'm older than all of you, so my old stuff must be really old!

• antique
  
• An antique
  
• Some fabulous old ... old even when my Mum was a little girl.
  
• Some early Fifties paperbacks
  
• My Gran's
  
• An antique
  
• Some other old stuff.
  

---

Gee - some of those there antiques must be really old!
Dates, womane.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by kovacs:
I'm afraid you possess a fake! Lewis Carroll's books are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

I see that Phillip Gough's edition was 1949.

---

It could be a bookclub edition... the illustrations are in the copy I have, and yes, the publisher is Heirloom Books as cited on the link you gave.
 

Which means that I haven't listed hundreds of Victorian-era stamps, a large collection of coins, and various other odds and sods. And o yes, my WW2 memorabilia. But I'm not going to go into that.
 

A cocktail ring that my grandfather had made for my grandmother. 13 rubies encircling an opal set in gold.

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: Amy ]
 

(that makes it older than me..)
 

I have some old jewellery, including a gold and turquoise ring which was given to my grandmother by her first fiance who was killed in WW1 (*sniff), a teddy given at birth to my older sister who died when she was three (*sniff*sniff*), a ship's chest which belonged to my great-grandfather when he was captain of the Royal Yacht Osborne (oooooOOoooo), two antique French beds, two antique French pot cupboards, a Georgian table, an ancient old sewing machine in a cabinet which you treadle, old chairs, old stamps (a couple of 25 million DM ones from the thirties)... O the list goes on.

Oldness rules.

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: herbs ]
 

a brown leather belt that belonged to my father (1950s)
five collapsible bokeshelves from the 1960s
bertrand russell's history of western philosophy printed in 1965
a small holy bible given to my dad at christmas in 1943
original beatles white album and abbey road
a print of ballerinas (perfect for kovagen and imovacs!) by degas that my mum bought in 1962

like ben i too have several second-hand clothes (including a mod suit that i bought for £5 back in 1994 and is still in glorious condition) though not perhaps as many as him. the crowning glory of these old clothes, however, is a tail suit made in 1937 by my grandfather. it fits me beautifully and looks stunning. i have to wear a shirt with separate stiff collars with it, with the result that one cannot move when one is correctly attired. no-one ever has white tie and tails occasions any more (more's the pity...) but i have worn it at the odd black tie do where i feel i can get away with it. (important ettiquette note: one must wear white tie and waistcoat with tails, unless one is one of the servants)
 

my favourite old things in our house:

three original breuer chairs, one of which is falling to pieces- 1920s?
1930s singer sewing machine
granite pestle and mortar, possibly 18th century
1890s medicine chest
painting of my mother when she was 9
my grandmothers wrens badge and patchwork quilt
tapestry with a tree on it, and the words 'united ireland: connaught, munster, leinster, ulster'- old, and possibly slightly politically incorrect, although my knowledge of irish history is pitifully inadequate. but it looks rilly cool.

[ 16 July 2003: Message edited by: discodamage ]
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ben:
Gee - some of those there antiques must be really old!
Dates, womane.

---

Bed - c. 1900
Table - c.1910
Books - c.1930
Ring - c.1920

Not that old, really. Unless you're American.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amy:
A cocktail ring that my grandfather had made for my grandmother. 13 rubies encircling an opal set in gold.

---

Hands up all the people who missed the letters T.A.I.L. on first reading the above post?

No?

Just me then..

Looking around the room right now I can see exactly nothing that is older than me. The only thing that even comes close is a box containing three of my Mother's right eyes, Circa 1972.. So I'd be four years old.

S'funny the things you keep after the death of a loved one...
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Being a sentimental old soppy, I think this thread's becoming really lovely!
Kovacs, are you sure you meant to start your fellow members thinking with due love & respect of their forebears, histories an' such?
Post-ironic ancient modernism or something ... naturally .

---

I may not be older than you, but I am probably soppier. Dude, I spent last Friday sitting by Lewis Carroll's grave. I am not a stranger to connecting sentimentally with the past.
 

My car is older than Ringo.
 

Edited highlights:

A bible owned by an ancestor who was serving on HMS Hood, but who was on leave when it was sunk.

A couple of sets of propaganda postcards sent from France by my great, great uncle at the height of the 14-18 war. They are full of idealism and optimism. He survived.

My grandfather's regimental badges, ribbons, medals and insignia from WW2 - Scots Guards, 22 SAS regiment (he was in the first induction, in - I think - 1942). Assorted bits he collected during that conflict; a German tank periscope, and an old Kodak folding bellows camera. I like these, as they provide a tangeable link with him; he died some years back.

An original copy of the Beveridge Report.

A late nineteenth century printing of Handel's Messiah.

A 1930's upright piano which I was given by my Dad's Auntie about three years ago.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by StevieX:
airloom

---

Sounds like something out of Harry Potter, doesn't it. "What's this?" gasped Harry, watching the shuttle fly back and forward over what looked like an empty frame.
"This, Harry, is an airloom," Dumbledore explained. "We use it to weave invisible cloaks for the thestrals."
"But thestrals only wear cloaks during wartime, Headmaster," Hermione pointed out.
Dumbledore looked grave. "Precisely, Hermione. Precisely."

Pah! easy! only another 800 pages and I'm done.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Octavia:
Sometimes I think life would be a sad, empty place if it wasn't for kovacs.

---

I'm quoting this just so I can treasure it. If you meant it. O, even if you didn't, I'm not fussy.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by kovacs:

Sounds like something out of Harry Potter, doesn't it. "What's this?" gasped Harry, watching the shuttle fly back and forward over what looked like an empty frame.
"This, Harry, is an airloom," Dumbledore explained. "We use it to weave invisible cloaks for the thestrals."
"But thestrals only wear cloaks during wartime, Headmaster," Hermione pointed out.
Dumbledore looked grave. "Precisely, Hermione. Precisely."

Pah! easy! only another 800 pages and I'm done.

---

Yeah, it had a certain ethereal quality. Like what you did with it.

I spent fourteen hours at work yesterday; seven of which were out in the sun, three in the thirty-plus degree hormone laced warmth of our leaver's disco. Then a breakdown and three hour wait for the recovery fux to turn up. You'd be amazed what that does for your spelling.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by kovacs:
Dude, I spent last Friday sitting by Lewis Carroll's grave.

---

How many copies did you manage to flog?
 

I love old stuff. From memory, I can think of

• jewellery left to me by my mother. In particular, a diamond and platinum ring that I remember gazing at on her finger as a child.
• Albums. In particular, two by the Pretty Things (mid sixties). I bought these as a teenager and played them to death. I must now nag J to reconnect his turntable so I can start playing them again.
• A black cocktail dress from the Thirties. It has a corseted velvet bodice with jet beading and a taffeta skirt. It's tiny and I think I was last able to fit into it when I was 20.
• A book of children's fairy tales. It bears an inscription inside dated 1912 and is full of delicate, water colourish illustrations. I bought it for 10p in a junk shop years ago.

It's my ambition to one day live in an old Victorian or Georgian house - all high ceilings and deep skirting boards and cornices. I'd fill it with chestnut soft leather sofas and opulent jewel coloured fabrics and huge bookcases and rugs that cover the entire floor and...and...and...
 

(But it's not quite as un-antique as, say, Crosse and Blackwell pickles, or Pears Soap, or Huntley and Palmer chocolate, all of which are technically "Victorian" but of course also modern -- because I presume the 20 or so colours in this range are true to the colours people would have been using in the 1860s and shortly thereafter.)
 

I don't think anyone commented on my enamelled bath picture, on "Weekend" I think, but I haven't really checked.