What's the Oldest Thing You Own?

I own some rocks that are likely billions of years old
- That's cool. I want to travel to the Canadian Northern islands someday and see the rocks there, which are likely that old. Some deposits on Michigan's upper peninsula also date back to the Hadean, apparently.
  
  Aren't most(all?) rocks billions of years old? Are we making new rocks?

I have three extremely good condition $2 US bills from the 50s before they started printing "In God We Trust" on them.

I own land. It's been there all along.

My house, built in 1880.
- It's a very very very fine house.
  
  Survivorship bias means only old houses left are the great ones.

Petrified wood, about 225 million years old.
- By this logic, my oldest possessions are my protons, which are approximately the same age as the universe.
  
  You mean "proton"?
- The diamond in my wife's engagement ring is more than a billion years old.
  
  It would be cool if we could ID which exploding star it came from.

I've got some rocks on a shelf from the Permian. So a little older than 250 million years.

I have a pendant which is made of a tiny piece of Campo Del Cielo meteorite. It's several billion years old (4.5 according to wiki).
- This comment made me realize how much of a ship of Theseus question this is. If you own made of stone, is that the "as old as" the stone, or when the thing was made? If your meteor was made into something, does it somehow change its age? None of that matter came from nowhere though, so the meteor was made from even older stuff, eventually going back to the creation of the universe.
  
  For rock material, we generally consider it's age as when it solidifies. Most meteorites are this age because they came from a supernova explosion of our sun at the end of its prior generation. This ejected most all elemental material lager than Hydrogen in our solar system. These elements were fused in that prior sun and ejected during the explosion. What didn't coalesce into a larger body (e.g. a planet) froze into space dust and small asteroids, some of which falls to earth.
  So, the amalgam that makes up the rock is 4.5Ga (giga anum), the minerals within are about the same. However, the elements that made up the stone were made long before in inside the prior sun. Now how long the subatomic particles have been around is a question for someone else.

My birth certificate ☺️

A 17th century bible.
- I have one too. It's big.

Blue Bear.
When I was maybe 3 (I don't remember personally, I heard this story years later), my sister who was 9 at the time had this stuff bear. Blue fur, not much special about it, just an average stuffed bear. One day I decided I liked the bear more, and declared it mine. I was 3, that's what 3 year olds do. A great fight ensued, but since I was the baby Mom told my sister to just let me have it. It was stolen a few times, and stolen back a few more times. And then hidden away for a great many years. Until one day in our 30s, going through my old toy box at my father's house, hidden under some old report cards and junk toys, laid Blue Bear. And a great fight ensued, only this time with words and the occasional hip check into the wall to grab and dash. My step mother stepped in to tell us the smarten up and just give me the bear. And that was the first time I actually appreciated my step mother for something. She bought my sister whiskey to make up for it, but we all knew who won that day.
Blue Bear now sits in my living room display case.
- My daughter had my first teddy bear. It's 56 years old
- you don't own it though.. you stole it from your sister, who loves you. bonehead.
  
  Spoils of war, my dude. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, she's had more wins than I have. The bear is mine, now and forever.

Your mom.
- Gottem.

1855 handbook from the freemasons detailing their rituals, imagery, ranks, and more.

A tooth from a megalodon. Not sure how old it is exactly, somewhere between 3.6 million years and 23 million years.

1929 My house
197X My keychain
1993 My first guitar
1995 My car
- 1993 My first guitar
  1995 My car
  See kids? Don't start playing guitar or you'll end up like this guy.
  
  It's a volvo so it simply won't die. It's likely to be replaced this upcoming spring, though.

A cast iron pan that I inherited from my grandmother is around 100 years old.

My knees.

License plates from 1925. I'm tempted to put them on my car in a year because they simply say 25 on them.

What's left of my Bionicle collection.
- I feel there's a story you want to tell
  
  I would like to hear it

old as in the item's age or old describing how long I've owned it for?
first one is an enameled cast iron pot that my folks got decades ago, one of their folks had it - it's a really ugly 1960s orangish sort of red/brown. it's super old, but I've only had it for 5 or 6 years. damn thing is so ugly it just keeps getting passed down to whomever likes to cook.
2nd one is my can opener - got it in 1998, it's built like a tank. actually used to it hammer tent pegs into rocky soil when camping once.

Commemorative medallion from a battle in Sweden around 1640, cant remember exact year.

My grandfather founded a liquid propane company and I have the adding machine he used as a register. It may not be quite literally the oldest thing I own, but I consider it the coolest old thing I own.
The sides of it are plastic so you can see the mechanisms and it weighs a gazillion pounds. My wife hates it because we've moved it through three houses. I love it and will never voluntarily let it go.

Little book full of German religious psalms and poetry, printed 1692. Not worth much really, but smells great and is fun to look at. Have to be careful with it though, quite brittle if still in good shape.

A chunk of amethyst mineral from Uruguay I got at a mining museum - millions of years old or possibly much more.

Either the fossils I found on a beach in Estonia or rocks. Oldest man-made thing is maybe my antique closet from early 20th century.

I think that would be the Pentax camera I have. It's from the 70's. Still functional, too.
- Takumars are great lenses. I dabbled with Pentax but ultimately went the Minolta route.

A couple notable things:
1930s acoustic guitar
1880s-1890s cast iron scotch bowl
Family photos and photographic plates dating back to the Victorian
Hundred year old package of patchouli, which still has smell!

I have a decent amount of older family heirlooms, but the oldest thing that was only ever mine is probably my first passport. I was maybe 4 months old when I got it, and it definitely has the most/coolest stamps of all of the passports I've ever had. Of course I don't remember any of it, but I keep it in the hopes that someday one of my adult books will measure up.

My great-grandfather’s rocking chair. I don’t know the exact date, but it’s from the early 1900’s and was refurbished some time in the 50’s. Still in amazing shape and solid as hell.

A Japanese tea ceremony chest, which is mid-Meji period 1890s and a book on hypnotism from 1906.

Coins, I suppose. I have some from the late 19th century so nothing crazy like the Roman stuff, although I'd love to have some of those ancient ones.

Kitchen table is 1880ish? My mom got it from one of her first palliative patients who got it from their parents and had nobody else to leave it with when they passed. Use it daily and have it paired with some modern steel chairs ... it's a little eclectic around here.
I've got some straight razors as well. Pretty sure some of the Swedish ones go back to 1700s.

1958 suburban house

I think... An old cookbook that belonged to my grandma before she passed away. Otherwise maybe a coin from Roman times.

I found a 105 year old german artillery fuse cap with a metal detector some years back so maybe that. I have some old tools aswell but impossible to say how old they really are. Last summer I found a 100 year old coin too.

Some old things I own:
A top I used to wear in school which I haven't thrown away because it still fits me and is in good condition. I have even worn it in recent times. It's close to 30 years old.
Last year I finally purchased a new laptop to replace my old one that I had been using since 2009.
I own a piece of clothing belonging to my grandma that she used to wear to parties. I wore it for a function in October. I don't know exactly how old it is, probably purchased in 1960s or 1970s.

In daily use? My 1943 Epiphone Zenith arch top guitar.
I have a hand tool for scraping fish used by native Americans that I found in a sand dune in Florida. Quite old.

A musical instrument (with some very old sheet music, an ancestor used to play piano for silent movies), a stamp collection (with lots of stamps, some from the 1800s).

Car from 2008.
- Car from 1992.
  
  Car from 1988.

Probably my house? Think it was built in 1928.
- Me too, 1925 here.

nothing really. I stopped being a sentimentalist/collector/hoarder years ago, I've packed up my life into cardboard boxes and moved all over the world more than 35 times in my life and I've just got no energy left to drag around old things with me everywhere I go.

- Trigger?

Compaq portable plus luggable PC
Need to redo the foam and foil keys but otherwise it works great, let out the magic smoke the first time i powered it up so i did a re-cap and now it starts fine.
And it even has a working hard drive!
I also have an IBM Lexmark model M keyboard I use as my daily driver

Like the think that I have owned the longest? Or the thing that was made the longest ago?
If it's the thing that I've owned the longest, my cartridge of Mega Man X, which I have owned since about 1995 or 1996.
If it's the thing that was made the longest ago, my wife's sewing kit that she inherited from her aunt, which was probably made in the 1970s.

My wife collects mechanical wristwatches. But since we aren't millionaires, she buys them in bulk lots online. Most times she'll get an interesting or semi-valuable watch or two. Usually broken or damaged in some way, but often within her ability to repair.
So. One day her watch haul included a double hunter pocketwatch whose maker's mark we weren't familiar with - "JW Benson". And inside the case was the text "Watchmaker by warrants to the Queen and the Prince of Wales."
Between those two, we managed to deduce that it had been manufactured sometime around 1880 (+/- a couple years. The company was bombed in WWII and a lot of records burned. IIRC, we had narrowed it to like a five year span, but the exact dates couldn't be determined beyond that)
Anyway. That watch - which still runs - is probably the oldest thing.
- That's pretty awesome. For someone who knows nothing of the subject, is there much value in something like that?
  
  There can be, but this one has a busted face and some other cosmetic damage. The mechanism still works fine, but this particular watch isn't really gonna be worth anything to anyone but us.
  Other watches she's repaired have been worth up to a few hundred dollars. ...Which actually isn't that much for watches. At the high end, the really bonkers shit can cost over 100K. These sorts of watches are hand built by master craftsmen and take a really long goddamn time to make (hence the price). But they tend to be absolutely gorgeous and marvels of mechanical engineering.
  So, as watches go, she's paddling about in the shallows, repairing things like the odd Tissot or Omega, which can be valuable-ish. But usually sub-200, occasionally up to $600-700.

I’ve got a ammo box and a plane made out of bullet casing’s from World War 2 that used to belong to my grandfather.
- plane made out of bullet casing’s
  pic? Post that shit on c/pics, I'd say. That sounds cool.
  
  Sure, I made a post over on c/pics. https://lemmy.world/post/9098624 honestly never thought about letting other see what it looks like.

My house. Built in the 1840s.
- Pics or it didn't happen!
  
  I mean I can share pics, but it's a fairly run of the mill Victorian terrace. 11 foot ceilings and a picture rail in the lounge which is nice. A few of the original features remain. Compared to a lot of the houses in the Georgian market town I live in, mine is positively new.

have fossil
- Now go to the museum and have Blathers assess it.

Probably some of my japanese wood working tools. It's hard to tell for sure though.
I buy all of my tools from an online discount store and they never have any known origin. It's difficult to date because Japanese tools are extremely traditional and a modern one can be indistinguishable from an ancient one.
That being said some of my tools show signs of extremely strenuous use and are definitely on the older side. Additionally they are made of wrought iron, it comes from raw pig iron and has to be hand forged and shaped. Most Japanese tools now use modern soft iron with exceptions being very high end tools and very experienced blacksmiths (making tools out of wrought iron is much more difficult).
After comparing images of Japanese tools from various time periods I estimate one of my plane blades could be from the 1800s. Mostly wishful thinking but definitely in the realm of possibility. Unfortunately the blacksmith that forged it was not famous enough to have any recorded information, documentation or mentions but it is still an exquisitely crafted blade, even if it's seen a lot of love.

An old brass model train from the 60s. We don't have an exact date, but that what I've been told.
Someone converted it to DCC at some point, but otherwise original.

I have a couple of Griswold cast iron skillets - an “8” and a “10”. I just looked up their particular vintage and they are both from 1930-1939, so 83 to 93 years old. Im confident that those are the oldest things I have that I use regularly and they are probably the oldest things I own.