Been there quite a few times a bit later....two good friends used to live a few blocks up the hill....one was smokin' hawt and a Norwegian wild child :)

boots
 

Red Wing boots purchased in 1978. Been in 'em to over 20 countries. Re-soled a half dozen times. Oil 'em up and go.

My large Big Green Egg.
Bought used from Kijiji (like Craigslist) for $400 with a table and a bunch of accessories.
I have used the heck out of that thing with great results and sometimes amazing results...

I have a few things I've gotten my money's worth out of. One is my pair of Frye boots I bought in 1970 for $40. The other is something I didn't pay for. It's a shirt jacket my girl friend gave me in 1960. I still wear each of them occasionally.
Sorry for the side ways pic.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492491618.JPG

My wife.

Look closely at the photo and you'll see that you replaced a water heater, not that other thing you mentioned. YukYukYukYuk.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492500233.jpg

We're getting ready to replace a gasser of similar vintage... maybe 5-8 years older. I bet they don't make 'em like they used to.

Do gas water heaters generally last significantly longer than electric?

A once-in-a-lifetime deal for me.
 

Bought a house on a 1/2 acre in Menlo Park, CA for $260k.
After the down payment, I had $138 left in my bank account.
Sold 22 years later for $1.85 million.

Cheap thermapen. so pleased with the value I bought a box of them to give out to friends.

RT600C Super-Fast® Pocket Thermometer from ThermoWorks

I have two Thermapens, the older style. One is back lit for winter cooking. Just found my original and after a battery change it is still bang on accurate.

https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODk5WDc4O...Xn7pb/$_86.JPG


Stock photo, but I bought a pair of these for $2200 in 1997 which was a TON of money for me at the time. I used and enjoyed them literally everyday for 19 years and they still work great. I have replaced them with thier much bigger brothers last year though.

without a doubt, my wife and three children later with thousands in cost raising them, now have two grandchildren, am a happy camper.

our current house and office building, a ten bagger in value easy, problem is I have to sell them.

My education

I have had several of these... many have suffered broken screens.

I now have the current model and it works well.

RPN forever!

Walmart stock my Grandmother left me when she bought it many many many years ago.

My Makita portable 110v air compressor. 12+ years old and still chugging along.

some great answers!! i cant believe a pair of doc martins are still going..i destroyed my only pair. i was doing car repairs with them..

My Arima 17. I bought it 8 years ago for 7K and it's still worth close to that. I have put maybe 1500 into repairs over the years. I use it about once a week. I have said many times "it could sink tomorrow and I will have gotten my moneys worth out of it".

Dave
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492620884.jpg

putting on flame suit the three Hyundai Elantra's I have owned, comfortable/cheap/ reliable, never let me down.

The Nissan Versa I'm driving now really makes me miss my Hyundai(s).

My house, huge PITA, needs constant maintenance, has zoning issues, but it has a rental unit and just keeps going up in value.

Rigid Shopvac-$19 on sale at Home Depot about 8 Labor Days ago. It sucks. Period.

Then the interior perimeter drain in my basement.

My John Deere 330 diesel garden tractor. The best tool I have EVER bought.

Yeah? ^

a better tool than PPOT? ;)

Back in the 1970s I bought a footlocker at K-mart for $10. It was supposed to be $20 but had been mis-tagged and they honored the price. An aunt was in college at the time and freaked about the deal, but they'd fixed the price when she got there and she decided $20 was too much. She was over to my house recently and freaked when she saw I still had it, 40-odd years later.

What's funny is why I bought it - I collected comic books as a kid and I had two big fears: 1) I had a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #1 and worried it and my other comics would be thrown out during some parental cleaning binge and 2) that someone would find out I'd paid $200 for an old comic book. It also protected them from the random mayhem that comes from younger siblings, the same group that put my budding coin collection in a soda machine one warm summer day. :)

An old Bridgeport mill I picked up for 300 bux and netted 7K on the first job I did.

Some broken bones, some trips to the ER but I'm still here.

If I remember correctly the one in the lower right lasted one friday trackday+ about 10 minutes of a practice Saturday morning.

There are more, I'm out of shelf space. :D
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492716295.jpg

Good point. I have an arai that looks like an axe murderer went at me.

Expensive as hell. But worth it.

My Altec Lancing Voice of the theater speakers.
I think they are as old an me (60)
Bought them over 30 years ago.
Used as stereo speakers in my first apartment (converted garage)
Used for PA speakers in a few friends bands.
Used for party speakers in out 'recording studio' (don't think any recording ever happened there.
Now hanging in my garage much to the dismay of my wife, she has has no idea that when I work in the garage and she hears music that music is coming out of those behemoths.
Photo off the internet, mine are green:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492720265.jpg

I would have to say, all of the equipment that I cut/split/burn firewood with. I have a Stihl MS310 chainsaw with a 20" bar, and 4 sharp chains (I sharpen them myself). This saw runs great in any weather, and has been doing so for 10 years (BTW, it is the second set of 4 chains I have run through) you can usulually about 10 sharpenings per chain, and can usually cut several truckloads per sharpening.

I burn all this in my Regency woodstove, with a stainless "Metalbestus" chimney which keeps the old farmhouse toasty in almost any weather. My log splitter is a Tractor Supply 8HP briggs 24 ton splitter that has honestly never failed to plow through any peice I have attempted (even twisty wet oak).

Before I moved into our house, the previous owner had been using 2100 gallons of propane as an average per year, over the last 5 years of him owning the house. I did that for one year 22 years ago, and have been burning ever since. I hate to guess how much money I have saved, and how much better shape I am in because of burning wood all these years. I have probably come close to saving enough money to buy another similar house.

We bought a used 1987 John Deere 955 4x4 diesel utility tractor, with a 72" belly mid-mower, and a 52" front end loader from my wife's Grandmother 17 years ago for only $6000. At the time, they were running $15,000 used, and still bring more than we paid along time ago.

I have mowed 2 large lots, plowed deep snow, dragged trees out of our creek, hauled countless loads of split/unsplit firewood, probably spread out 15-20 large dumptruck loads of stone on our driveways, and inside the new 60'x104' barn that it helped build, loaded scrap steel/junk cars onto trailers, dug deep holes for our deceased animals, and pulled many stuck vehicle out of mud and snow. I use this tractor almost every day, for things most people can't even comprehend.

My STIHL (sitting on the retaining wall it cut yesterday)
Edit: funny- also a 310!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1492726957.JPG

A metric set of MAC box and open ended wrenches in 1974. 10-19mm. Thin line handle. They absolutely have to be forged.

$76 from a tool truck that pulled into the machine shop where I worked. Payroll deduction.

Across the years, lost the 10 and the 19. Broke the box on the 18 and 15 from blunt force trauma that I inflicted.

Do you DIY it too Dave?

Well worth the cost
 

about 15 years ago I bought a vertical milling machine for $1K. Over the next 10 years of so I used it to make replacement fuse panels for early 911s. It paid for itself many times over! When I first started making the fuse panels I had 65 or 70 on backorder! Eventually the demand dwindled to almost nothing and I moved on to other projects! The profits added significantly to my Colt collection!

1995 Subaru Legacy. Bought it for $3000. Deducted business mileage for several years. Sold it for $2000. Might go down as the best car I've ever owned.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611233323.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611233323.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611233323.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611233323.jpg

Other than my '06 Taco I give props to my 17 year old Frye boots.

Hmmmmmmm..........still thinkin.........

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611241320.jpg

Isuzu Trooper. Dirt cheap, uses mostly GM parts. Tough, capable.

I had one, loved it http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611241843.jpg