Ever go to a museum or antique store and see stuff you used as a kid?

[cmendla]

I really hate when I go to a museum or antique store and see stuff that I used as a kid.

I was out with my girlfriend and saw a washboard in an antique store. I still remember my mom using that.

A couple of years back I visited the maritime museum in tuckerton. On the front porch they had an old 20 hp white mercury engine that was identical to the one I had on my boat when I was in my teens.

[LifeinAsia]

I saw a rotary phone once. I remember we had those as a kid. And I remember what a PITA it was trying to use it when the local radio station gave away tickets for the 25th caller...

[topr8]

haha, i know what you mean ... it does feel funny when old toys that you don't even remember because you were too old when they were released are for sale or on display somewhere!

although i would say having been to antiques stores all over, that the north american perception of antique is a bit different to that in the old world!
[where i was born the local church is norman and was built 920 years ago ... it gives you a different perspective on age]

[cmendla]

@lifeinasia - My mom had a rotary phone in the breezeway of her shore home. We were using it until it spent a day under salt water courtesy of Sandy's storm surge.. It's amazing that the phone company still supported pulse dialing.

[incrediBILL]

No, what's amazing is modems still do pulse dialing

Not only did we have pulse dial phones, I grew up in a rural area on a on a street with a party-line as all 3 houses had the same phone line and you could listen in to each other's calls.

When I was real little I still remember mom using a wash tub, manual clothes ringer to get the water out, and a clothes line. Mom doesn't like to be reminded of such stuff. We made ice in metal ice cube trays, not plastic, not automatic, and it always hurt your fingers when they got stuck to those metal trays.

Every computer I ever used back in the day is now a museum piece.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 5:42 pm (utc) on May 2, 2013]

[Leosghost]

Every computer I ever used back in the day is now a museum piece.

::bites tongue,sits on hands:: ;)

[incrediBILL]

bites tongue,sits on hands

Could be worse, biting your hands and sitting on your tongue.

[LifeinAsia]

We made ice in metal ice cube trays ... and it always hurt your fingers when they got stuck to those metal trays.

Yes! And in a refrigerator that had a door that "locked" when you closed it (the kind that stupid people playing around could lock themselves in and suffocate).

[engine]

I don't hate it, cmendla, I like it. I'm pleased to see that someone has taken the time and effort to look after these things.

I went to a museum a couple of years back and it was all about toys and kids memorabilia. It was a fantastic journey back in time. I remembered playing with many of the types of toys on display, some of which are collectors items and worth something of value. Mostly not great value, i'd add.

Many of the toys seemed to be 'out-of-date' and I cannot imagine kids playing with the vast majority of those toys. I think they'd find them uninteresting.

[lucy24]

in a refrigerator that had a door that "locked" when you closed it

Funny you should bring this up, because I was thinking recently that the "Don't play in abandoned refrigerators" warning is destined to be passed on FOREVER, although the specific technology involved existed only for a few decades. (For people too young to remember: Early refrigerators didn't have magnetic doors that could be opened by an adult with one finger. They had mechanical latches so it was absolutely and literally impossible to open the door from the inside.) Cookbooks are loaded with similar archaisms.

Yup, I've seen stuff from my childhood on Antiques Roadshow. Oi! That's not an antique! I personally remember using it. And next door on Market Warriors (this is for US-based readers) recurring categories include "mid-century modern" and :: drumroll :: the Seventies. Don't know about the rest of youse, but when I see an orange naugahyde banquette I do not immediately think "antique".

I read recently that phone companies cleverly continued charging extra for touch-tone service (as distinct from pushbutton, which only applied to the physical telephone) for many years after it became de facto cheaper than pulse dialing, because it was all automated. This is probably not a unique phenomenon.

[lawman]

Those Western Electric desk phones are close to indestructible.

[incrediBILL]

Some of the toys I had would now bring a small fortune, like my Lionel Train set with the Exploding Car and crossing lights. Most people had non-functional Exploding Cars but my rocket launcher and exploding car worked perfectly.

Plus, unlike other little monsters, I kept all my toys in good condition and maintained all pieces of board games until evil cousins showed up that had no respect for the toy, and some of them are worth a bunch today.

The only toys that got wrecked were the Cowboys and Indians which kept setting each other on fire, plus one of my Army men had a flame thrower (match) and he set some of the enemy on fire. Don't tell mom.

Not to mention my first car would now fetch some serious coin.

Makes ya feel OLD...

[lucy24]

Those Western Electric desk phones are close to indestructible.

Heh. Remember the "Oh, nothing, I just dropped the phone" commercials? Time was, if you dropped a telephone you had bits of wiring and circuitry all over the floor-- or possibly the downstairs neighbor's floor, because those things weighed ten pounds and up. (I once floew across country with a phone in my luggage because I'd be arriving at a time when offices were closed. Besides, "a phone you can own!" cost around $30 for your basic model.)

Not to mention my first car would now fetch some serious coin.

There's a bottom-out point isn't there? The older a car is, the less it's worth... until you pass a certain age. Beyond that age, they start going up again.

:: detour to satisfy idle curiosity about current price of a '57 t-bird ::

[graeme_p]

At least the refrigerators warning is better than some other safety scares like using mobile phones near petrol which appears to have no foundation at all.

[lucy24]

Hey, if nobody used a cell phone within three meters of petrol in any form, they'd have to stop using them while driving :)

btw, if anyone is now curious: It looks like $40,000 and up, at least for anything in a condition to plaster its picture all over the internet. Presumably an unpainted car, like an unpainted house, plummets in value by much more than the cost of the paint job.

[incrediBILL]

like using mobile phones near petrol which appears to have no foundation at all.

It's not gasoline that's the problem, it's the vapors ad any spark or static discharge and WHOOSH! assuming the gas isn't vented properly. If there was an issue I'd suspect it's with regular cell phones that have actual buttons and not smartphones.

You would probably have more risk from a big wooly sweater that generates a lot of static, esp. on a cold day when the air doesn't move much and the vapors settle around the nozzle.

My Dad ran a gas station for 20+ years and I worked there as well and we never saw anything of the sort, no fires, no flash, nada. I think it's a load of nonsense myself. However, common sense is to always ground yourself to the car before touching the pump nozzle regardless which might be why we never saw a problem.

To scare the heck out of people my dad used to toss a lit match into a bucket of gasoline and it would actually put the match out. First, use diesel, not too many fumes which are what ignite, or use regular on a cold day. The bucket would catch every now and then but it you used a nice heavy wooden match that you could fling straight into the gas it just went out >PFFFT!< while people were running and screaming away :)

Then there's the old wive's tale of watered down gas which is idiotic as water and gas don't mix plus the nonsense about not pumping gas when the tank is being filled. The only way you'll ever get water, and there is almost always condensation inside the tank so there is water, is when the tank is bone dry and it's sucking out the last of the crud but the gravel and other stuff being sucked out will kill your car worse than the water. The reality is don't pump gas from an empty tank as you'll get dregs, period.

Speaking of antiques, my dad use antique adding machines and cash registers at his biz in the 70s/80s and they were in perfect working order, probably fetch a good dime today.

This thread is amusing me today of all days as you would think stuff over 100 years old would be worth something wouldn't you? Well age has nothing to do with value as I got my old stamp collection appraised today and my 1890s stamps weren't worth the page they were affixed to in the book. Coins were about the same, my 1964 mint set was about the only thing of value. Guess I'll either give it all to the grandkids or put it on craigslist and let some schmuck looking to kill time come take it off my hands so it doesn't clutter my house anymore.

It appears the real collectors have all vanished these days because, unlike in the 60s-80s, we now have the internet, video games and a bazillion TV channels and people that used to be bored to tears and become hobbyists now sit on their butts in front of a glowing screen and all that hobby stuff is now worthless because nobody buys it unless it's truly rare and unique.

In other words, I missed my window to sell and it's now just junk.

[engine]

You're right, iBill, it's the vapours that are the problem with fuel. Nylon clothes are probably a bigger threat to safety as a static build-up can cause quite and interesting spark. The vapour has to be there to ignite, of course.

I had a lovingly cared for stamp collection. As a kid, I spend a small fortune of my pocket money. I had, what I thought, were a few valuable stamps. Turns out they are worth, just as you said, very little. I really cannot remember what happened to them. I might have put them back into the roof space. I guess i'll come across them one day.

As with all these things, they are only worth what people will pay, and if they are not in vogue, either put 'em back in the storage, or hand 'em down the line.

I have a friend that collects old toy cars. His collection is valuable because these are the rare vehicles, mostly pre-fifties, and there's a good collectors network. Some of these vehicles are worth many hundreds of $. He has many hundreds of these cars.