What is the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?
Just wondering what passes the test of time? I personally have an old Casio watch and if you count fruit trees, those are pretty old too.
Our staircase was built over two centuries ago, and still does its job!
Mmm, delicious non OSHA-compliance. No handrails, no problem!
I'm fascinated with those joints. Are they nailed at all, or is it just held together by gravity, friction and the exterior walls?
My violin was made in 1614, but to be honest I use my practice violin daily and use that as my concert violin, and tune and play it weekly.
How paranoid are you about dropping it or falling while holding it? That's literally what I think every time I hear about instruments like this.
That would be among the few things left over from the age of knights and the black death (or the end of that period, anyway), and even modern instruments can be unbelievably valuable.
Not particularly. The wood sat in the harbor nearest to Brefchia to age for two years before Magini ever even touched it. It's pretty sturdy all things considered. The violin held up better than the original bow and wooden case. We fumigated all of them because they had become infected with bow mites. The original case and bow are in the attic, mostly she currently lives in a crushed velvet lined climate controlled case. Not playing her would do more damage than breaking her out and keeping her in tune.
Expensive piece of kit! I assume you're a professional musician?
Sadly, no. I was told by my cousins, who are professional violinists, that I had the ability, but they didn't inform me of that until I was already 25 and a chef.
I inherited the thing because I found it in my grandma's closet when I was 6 and helping her clean her room. I asked her who owned it, and she said it was my dead grandpa's violin. So I asked again, then who's is it? She thought about it and said "I dunno, I guess whichever of you grandkids learns to play it first."
My ass. No way. How do you know it's authentic, let alone date it to that time period? Secondly show us!
Lloyd's of London authenticated the tag inside, and the age. If I remember to, I will post a picture when I pull it out this next week.
Probably my legs, or something 😜
The foundation of the building I live in is from the 1880’s. Does that count?
1640s here!
.uk
What, it's not built on a Roman wall? Boooring. /s
It's crazy to me how commonplace truly deep history is over the pond. Like, there's been multiple different cities in the same place at different times, basically.
The old, big chest we store stuff in under the stairs is from 1883
'Stuff'.
No questions please.
Yeah, stuff. You know - stray boxes of Lego, some shoes, keys nobody knows what opens any longer..
I think there might be some pillows in there? Probably spiders.
About 15 years go I had to go somewhere that was much much colder than I anticipated, so we made an emergency drive to the closest town, and I bought the warmest jacket they had. It was like $300, but I never regretted it. Its the most practical, comfy, jacket ive ever owned and doesn't look half bad - even has a hoody you can clip on and off. Got me through snow as well, but its not water proof.
Love that jacket.
A stove spatula my mom had in the 1940s. Not daily but I use it routinely. I hand wash it instead of putting it through the dishwasher.
We also have my wife's grandmother's old, completely out-of-tune standup piano. Nobody in our house plays piano. We use it to take up space, accumulate clutter, and make sure that area of the room is unusable.
I read that as "stone spatula" and thought that thing was ancient
Cow tools
House is 123 years old, I have a couple of cast-iron pans that are civil war era, still get regular use.
I live in a refurbished barn on a farm. Age unknown but the imperial bricks and timbers used hint at Victorian. Love it. I have to accept Rats in the exterior walls, attic and the first floor cassette, and the house being cold even in summer due to the stone floor, and the related heating bill. Regardless, it's a better place to be than any modern house and I'm happy here. It provides inspiration. That might be the radon slowly killing my brain cells though.
Ugh, I grew up in a house of similar age. It's amazing how outdoors a nominally indoor space can be. The layers of history those places have can be neat, though.
My brain (since 1990), or at least I have been trying.
I have a drip coffee maker that's gotta be almost 40 now. It was given to me by an older family member when I moved into a new apartment. It still works fine as far as I can tell...
Your mom
I put a little string of fake pearls on my daughter about every day, and they were mine and my sisters' when I was a toddler, so they're about 30. I don't know how they've survived so many toddlers cause they'd break with any real pulling. She loves them though and is very careful with them. She also uses tiny baby sized silverware from my mom's babyhood(early 70s) It's cute and funny to watch her use miniature stuff that's just her size
I think that's the oldest thing other than furniture (we use my great grandfather's bedroom suite)
My back. Its getting creeky though.
For me, the house I'm in was built in 1912 but it's still holding strong. My parents have me beat though, they got the original governor of south carolina's front doors which were from somewhere in the late 1700s
Physical item: LL Bean Laptop Bag. Was designed for laptops much bigger than the one I have now and it’s held up well… except for the buckles.
Digital: Rollercoaster Tycoon got it in a cereal box and I still play it today.
A spoon. One Sterling Silver spoon that I have used in my coffee cup since 1978. It has survived every move. It knows more about me than any human on Earth. It has become so ubiquitous that I get really annoyed if I misplace it and I will look for it before that first cup.
I have no idea why.
This makes me want to build more stable rituals. I'm always changing things up.
I use a nice handmade wooden desk every day. No idea how old it is but my mom bought it at an antique store in the 70's, so it could be 80+ years old. And it's still in fantastic shape!
Edit: I heard back from my mom and she said it's (supposedly) from the late nineteenth century, so it's way older than I thought!
Until the oil pump shaft broke: a 1965 Holder AG3 European vineyard tractor. Centre articulating, 35+ Hp diesel, close to 2 metric tons, and a third the size of a VW Beetle. We used it extensively on our orchards for a good four decades, or just shy of that.
Sucker was stupidly strong for its size, and could out-pull most tractors twice its physical size. Last I was using it for was some pretty extreme landscaping in the front yard. Another story, because it takes some explaining, but yeah.
So apparently the oil pump shaft broke late 2023, and we thought it was just overheating. Nope. Plus, the mechanic also found a rather severe hydraulic leak into the oil system, which was about the only thing that kept the engine from totally seizing.
Unfortunately, we are about three decades too late for most of the required parts. The engine place does a lot of remanufacturing and machining, so I did ask them for their “fuck off” price (gotta have a benchmark in that regard). But they did strongly suggest a Kubota engine as a replacement, primarily because the original oil pump required some pretty unusual maintenance to avoid breaking like it did. Whoops. No-one in my family realized that, least of all my father who had bought the tractor in the 80s.
Not exactly daily but the shovel I use to clean out my grill ashes was my grandfather's, hand forged and used for branding iron fires, gotta be 100 years old. Then a phonograph from 1960.
Honorable mention for my truck. 1997 F-150. Turns 28 this year, just put a rebuilt motor in it, hoping for another 20 years.
A pair of toe-nail clippers my grandfather gifted me. I'm guessing late 1940s. As far as I can tell, it was something he bought from the on-base military store as things were winding down after WW2. It's rugged in a way you wouldn't expect - it was clearly built to last, well, indefinitely. Has this excellent leather carrying case in military olive green that is also wildly over-designed. Not flashy, just built to last.
It really makes me appreciate - we used to know how to make things here (USA). And we were so good at it, even the dumb little things could be built to last.
The US still does build things, just mostly expensive things.
TI-83 plus
My razor handle was manufactured in the 50s
Same. 1956 Gillette Super Speed. They used to make great stuff.
47 gillete aristocrat. There's alot of old razors in this post.
Not daily my l but I've gone hunting every year with a rifle from 1971 I think it said on the licence of the old man who gave it to me.
My '97 car?
Clothing? Furniture?
I have a cherry wood cabinet from the 1890s that I use to store food. Every day I take a box of cereal from it and put it back.
My dining room table was originally owned by my great grandmother and was passed down through the family and transported almost 2000km to it's current location in our house.
My wallet is the last piece of leather I will ever own.
I've got this little blue plastic cup I've had for almost 30 years. Use it for my toothbrush. Got it when I was a kid and it's the only toothbrush holder I've ever had since.
1940s Parker vacumatic skyline.
Writes like a dream and it is neat to use a piece of history.
Fender Stratocaster, bought from a Best Buy musical instrument department probably 19ish years ago. Just put new strings on it yesterday and continued learning Dokken's In My Dreams. Fuck that second part of the solo..
I have a teeny tiny screwgate carabina from about 1997 that I use as a key ring.
Used to use a double edge razor from the 1960s, I still have it. Gillette Slim.
I just use a modern DE instead, 2015 I think. Feather AS-D2.
Both of them will probably outlast me. Especially the Feather, even though it's newer and therefore theoretically made with less care, it was made in Japan, and it's entirely stainless steel, not pot metal. Very strong. You'd need to run it over with a truck to break it.
If cared for, nothing is stopping the Gillette from going another 60 years either.
3 piece safety razor from the 1950s. And soon a watch from 1950 too. Its a wind up watch.
I have a stove that is a little older then me. I have a cheese grater that no one in house kniws where it cane from or when we bought it. I have a towel i go in the 90s on a trip. That's about as old as a robotech art book i have kept since around then. And I have my grand father's dresser. Not sure how old that is
I have a 1973 Gibson ripper bass and a 1971 ampeg svt v9 with a late 70s 8x10 ampeg cabinet. I don't use them daily but more than twice a week, they both still work perfectly. Just regular maintenance
Maybe the iron skillets. I don't think a day passes that I don't use those. Or my house, it's from the 1940s. Some of the furniture is older than that too, though I don't think there is any one piece I actively use each day.
Truly oldest? Double entry accounting, I use nearly every day and that's from around 1300.
Oldest thing I use frequently may be a 100~ year old ring.
Everyday tools? Scissors and knives I've had at least since 2000. (Fiskars stuff is indestructible)
Computer stuff? My Commodore 64. (Don't use it daily but pretty regularly, sits in a box in my living room for easy access)
What do you do with the Commodore?
Games, mostly.
Also, I wrote the 2024 NaNoWriMo novel with it (and did the same in 2017). Can easily fit a daily sprint's worth of text in memory at once, heh.
I use a few modern add-ons: an SD2IEC drive (lets you use floppy images straight off an SD card) and EasyFlash3 (lets you use cartridge images, including the ability to pack random programs into utility carts).
I have a Razer mousepad that I've used for probably 15 years now.
Probably my Ron Jon Surf shop beach towel I got while on holiday in Florida in 1997 (I live in the UK). Still in great condition and I wouldn't say I've looked after it particularly.
Also honourable mention to my oldest tech which is an HP touchsmart 600 PC I use for youtube in my bedroom, it's from 2011 and still just about hanging on.
I have a washcloth I got when I was like 6.. I’m almost 40. It’s a really nice mesh washcloth and somehow it only has one extra hole that shouldn’t be there, as well as a seam for the edging that needs to be fixed.
I’ve used it almost daily for my face that whole time.
But the oldest thing I have that I sort of technically use is a wheelchair from WWI. It functions as a chair in my living room. I don’t really think it counts, being furniture, though.
That's cool. Where'd you get the wheelchair? Got a pic?
I have several vintage film cameras I use pretty often, oldest are probably my Nikon F or Leica M3 from the late 50s.
Until last year I used a ski coat from 1940 as my winter coat
What happened last year? 😳
fascion Nazis took it.
I wet shave. Ordered a vintage Gillette Fat Boy from the 70s. Definitely my oldest personal item. I've had it only about 10 years though.
In terms of actual daily use the oldest thing that I can actually date would be the table my computer sits on - that's been in the family since at least the 60s (when one of my uncles scratched his name into the drawer). It's just a basic solid wood desk, still holding up fine and unless abused will continue doing so for quite some time yet.
Aside from that some of my dinner plates are over 30, the motorbike I usually commute on is a '97 model, and the butter knives I like are not dated but I believe could be anywhere from early 1900s onwards (faux bone handles, made in England with various Sheffield makers marks).
I do have a few tools, cameras, and telescopes around which are also reasonably old but they aren't daily use items.
Hmm, probably cookware from the 1960's. Furniture too, if that counts. It's possible something in the kitchen is actually a generation older, although I'm not sure.
If you include decorations as opposed to just tools it goes back almost arbitrarily (I have 19th century heirlooms, pre-settlement arrowheads and Cambrian period fossils), but I think the spirit of the question is more about things finding a totally pragmatic application.
Edit: I also have a touch-sensitive lamp of a similar age to the cookware. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but I'm guessing the entire exterior is one big capacitor, and it must have a very early transistor inside to switch it. It's not quite used daily, but it's sure interesting.
Obligatory Technology Connections
Huh, very cool! Nobody in the family could remember where mine actually came from. Nobody else knew enough about electronics to be impressed by how old it is, either. Actually I'm lucky it came up.
There's no markings I can see. If Alladin had a patent on it maybe that would be the place to start looking for the model.
There's no mechanical relay I can hear and no tube warmup period, but on the other hand it has no boot period and it does behave oddly depending on the quality of mains power (so analog). The person who almost certainly bought it died in the 1970's.
The radio alarm clock, couldn’t find the specific year only to narrow towards the late 70s.
My flat, the building was built around the beginning of the 70s.
Probably my razor, shaving brush and soap mug. Bought them around 2012.
The soapmug is an Old Spice mug I got second hand off ebay. Not sure when it was made. 80's maybe. The others were bought new.