Random Question: Oldest thing you Own?
August 8, 2007
Here’s a question for you all out there:
What’s the oldest thing you own?
In my case, it’s a page from an illuminated Book of Days from what is today the Benelux region. It’s from c. 1450. The leaf, in Latin with gold, blue and red detailing, was a gift from my mother on my college graduation. And a good one, at that.
I also have a few scraps of a Gutenberg Bible, c. 1490. This is from my sister.
Other old: a book–a saint’s life in Spanish–from 1672. I bought it in Barcelona. A map: Andalucia (southern Spain) and Morocco, from Amsterdam, 1634. The map is in beautiful condition, the book, though obtained under more colorful conditions, less so.
5 Comments
Related Posts
- Lyza's Week in Books, Part II: Or, How much I Hate Dave Eggers
August 24, 2006 - Books: Tuesday Thingers: My Rarer Books
June 24, 2008 - Erik Larson: Devil in the White City
January 8, 2007 - Reader Question: Do you remove book jackets?
January 28, 2010 - Apple: Much of the Family Converted
August 31, 2006
Wonderful games with Caslon
This sounds like you asked a question just so you could give your answer. No offense, but who’s gonna reply with, “uh, I’ve got this ceramic dog that my dad got as a kid” (which is my answer, I think) I know it’s not a competition, but come on. No, I don’t have a piece of the one true cross, or some of Amerigo Vespucci’s early map sketches. In case you were wondering. Of course, I do have that “Ark” dealie the government put in my garage. Shhhh…
What on Earth are you doing with pieces of the Gutenberg Bible? Isn’t a museum looking for that?
Is it under glass, so as not to be destroyed?
I hope you are extremely well-insured.. .and that a robber isn’t reading this site…
There is a woman in Austria who recently found a medieval cross in a garbage can. It had been from the belongings of a Polish family and was confiscated by the Nazis. It will go to a museum.
Kewl! You got picked up by Mental_Floss today. Awesome that you have scraps that old. Mikey is just an old poop.
I think I’ll steal your question too.
Don’t panic! A piece of *A* Gutenberg bible, not *the* :). There were many made. And it’s a pretty small bit (my leaflets are not more than a square inch).
They were purchased from a very above-board antiquarian in Boston.
A trilobite fossil; just a hair over 250 million years old. I’m sure the rocks and stones in my back yard put this to shame though.