Cool old stuff thread
 

I got a great present from a fellow coworker today. He's a history buff, and a walking encyclopedia type.

He presented me with several old newspapers from the early-mid 1800's. Perfect shape. He handed them over with little concern and told me he had piles of them and that this type of stuff wasn't worth much. I was amazed though. Mint condition, pieces of history. Since I was from Richmond, he got me a Richmond paper.

I just got home with them tonight, and haven't even read them yet, but he says they have ads for slaves, which in today's dollars he stated would cost about $150k.

I just love this kind of stuff, and even if it is commonplace in the collector's world, it is amazing to me.

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What kind of old stuff do you have?

Newsprint doesn't age well, at least not the more modern stuff.

I have a copy of the paper from the day JFK was killed (my 3rd birthday), and even though it's been stored carefully it is severely yellowed and crumbling on the edges.
Some of the old newspapers I've seen that were still in good shape were actually re-prints.

I've always chuckled at the word Intelligencer.

"We're gonna intelligence you up with all the facts that we're printing here!"

He mentioned these were on a particular type of paper from the period- which did age well. He said these were papers bought and stored by other newspapers, for reference, which were never really read, but kept safe. I remember as a kid kicking through an old barn in the woods near my house and reading through junk mail from the 1930's (which I thought was great at the time, but this being 100 years older was (to me) super darn cool!

well... It is from Washington! :D

these were found in the wall of an old house.. dated 1905. I also have a stack of Times Picayune newspapers from 1945. every front page was about world war II. I like reading the classifieds

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1878 from Belgium, not a single nail or screw, all dove-tail and hand carved.
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Stuff like this amazes me not only because it is all fit together, and carved, but because someone purposely pushed limits in design- Look at how massive everything is, but they still took the time to eek these supports out to next to nothing!

It amazes me too. Do you think furniture made today will be around 135 years from now??? NOOOOO.

Problem with this piece is we just sold our house and are down-sizing. Wifey wants to go to a more contemporary look and this just doesn't fit. Nobody wants to buy it. I may have to donate it to a charity and take a tax right off.

nothing fancy but some junk i've found/dug up over the years.. some of tools I found at my great grandmother's old homestead. house was long gone but I remembered the location and found them while walking thru the overgrown property. I've got quite a lot of old stuff like this

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I've also got these two....My Dad bought the Phillips radio/turntable in 1936 for $53.85 and the 1899 Edison sitting on top.



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I found this hidden in an envelope inside some old merchant marine magazines my grandfather gave me. Thought it was really cool to have these. Unfortunately He's passed away now and I may get them mounted & framed.

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It's a Pioneer Gendron Wheel Company bicycle from ca. 1895. Courtesy of grandma's antique shop.

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When we were cleaning out my parents house I inherited a ton of old family photos and other old stuff. Since I have no kids I really wanted my cousins with kids to have a lot of it. One old quilt was made by my great grandmother for her mother. She had a letter to her mother in there as well. The glove that a different great grandmother wore on her wedding day was another neat thing.

There are many boxes of old photos.

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This is one of my great grandfathers.

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This is about my great great grandfather.

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Titled Harvest time in Driftwood, OK

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This is my fraternal grandmother. She is the girl in standing in the center with the spotted dress.

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I have photos from when my mom's parents were "Courting" and photos from their honeymoon trip.

I have it all scanned and on my family tree on Ancestry.com. Now I am still trying to find relatives to take the photos and save them for the future generations.

That is one of the sad things of today's digital photos. We all take a ton more photos now but virtually none of them will be around in 100 years for great grand kids to look at.

I have my grandmothers collection of old post cards from about 1900 to 1916. Most were those she had received but many were ones she wrote to others. She and her friends and sisters used them kind of like kids use text messaging and tweets these days. In rural Wisconsin in that day, it usually took only a day for them to be delivered. When Gram was in high school she lived with a family in town, working as a domestic to get room and board. Her sister would write her from the farm with a list of things to buy for her before she came home on the weekend. She and her friends would plan their weekend social calendar and trade all the gossip. The photos on the postcards could be anything and from anywhere. I know she never traveled to Asia, Africa or Europe but somehow she and her friends obtained postcards from all over to use for their communiques.

My mother's aunt was a lady that lived her own life and never got married. She went to work as a secretary at a travel agency in the 1930s. One of the jobs at travel agencies in those days was to take the trip and make notes on the accommodations, food and the overall trip. The agency loved to send a woman to get a female point of view on the trip and rooms and how guests were treated. She traveled the world many times over. She was 80 and in Hong Kong in 1970 or 1971 and she had a stroke. She lived her life her way in a time when many women never dreamed it was possible.

She would send postcards to all the relatives back home and they all collected them. One of the cousins was happy to get the large box of postcards.

This is a Greek amphora dating back to the 4th century B.C. It was recovered on a scuba diving trip from an ancient ship wreck in the Adriatic Sea by my uncle in the late 50's while he was a pilot in the Air Force.

It was used to carry oils, wine, fish and grains between Romans and Greeks across the Mediterranean, the point being placed in a hole in the keel and used as ballast.


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Being a private pilot for some 40+ years, I thought this was real cool. I married a wonderful person whose dad was not only the Brewmaster at a family brewery from around 1946 to 1966, but he was also a Marine Corps carrier pilot during WWII - he flew SBD and TBM for the most part (and a little F4U). What a guy, I miss him. This is a page from his logbook - strikes on Kamakazi airfields I believe.

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I spoke with the guy who gave me these newspapers yesterday. He mentioned the paper from the era was cotton based, and very expensive, not wood pulp based, hence it's longevity. Probably common knowledge but news to me.

Good thread. I bought these old metal skis for a few $$ at a garage sale 25 years ago because they were so unusual. Never really knew what they were until doing some research recently. Turns out they are 'Air-Skis' from 1947 and were developed by a Dow Chemical engineer using Dowmetal O-1hta magnesium (the world's lightest structural metal at the time and developed for WWII aircraft). The skis were manufactured by the American Ski Company in the small northern Michigan town of Clare and shipped worldwide. They were the first important American contribution to the sport of skiing. I'm in the process of donating these to the Clare County Historical Museum.

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^HEY!!!! Those bindings are not safe!!!!

(I think everyone says that about the previous generation of bindings to make everyone feel like they need to upgrade):D

My offering tonight is my 1931 national duolian.

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In the 1920s, electric guitars had not been invented yet. Acoustic guitars could only be so loud... So an immigrant John Dopyera invented a resophonic guitar, basically, guitar strings attached to speaker cones. He invented the most (subjectively) beautiful instrument of all time- the national tricone in 1926. It cost the $300 at the time (The equivalent of 3 grand) in todays money. It became THE instrument of HAWAIIAN music which was popular at the time. Then the depression hit. Against his advice, his business partner unleashed John's second invention (this single cone) and released it for (I think 30 bucks) the equivalent of $300 in today's money.

It saved the company, but John Dopyera never liked or approved of releasing such an "inferior" instrument.

The single cone resonator (such as this duolian), however, became to be known as THE instrument of prewar slide guitar blues.

He had a falling out with his company, was ousted, and out of spite, Mr Dopyera invented the DOBRO, which is THE backbone of bluegrass sound.

He later used that success to buy out his original company. Then WWII hit- and the electric guitar was invented- and that was the end of that.

I cannot think of an inventor who came up with not one, but three very influential sounds for three different genres! Long Live John Dopyera!!!
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