What is the craziest item you’ve ever owned that other people rarely have?

[lordmarcovan]

What is the craziest item you’ve ever owned that other people rarely have?

I was asked to answer this on Quora.

Here’s my answer. (Not coin-related.)

What’s yours? What’s the most interesting, unusual, weird, wacky, or rare object you’ve ever owned, which few other people ever have?

Considering our demographic here, I would imagine that for many of you it might be some kind of ancient artifact.  If so, great, let’s hear about that!  But what else have you had that might fit the bill?

[kirispupis]

I would have to say the only known firecracker pack and label from the Goldstein's Company in Rochester, NY.

I used to collect antique firecracker packs and still have both of these. When I first started collecting these this was my "dream pack" because I grew up near Rochester. When they came up for auction, I sprung for them both.

Despite my fondness for them, I'd consider donating them to a museum in Rochester, but I'm too worried they would be ignored and destroyed.

[lordmarcovan]

9 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

I would have to say the only known firecracker pack and label from the Goldstein's Company in Rochester, NY.

I used to collect antique firecracker packs and still have both of these. When I first started collecting these this was my "dream pack" because I grew up near Rochester. When they came up for auction, I sprung for them both.

Despite my fondness for them, I'd consider donating them to a museum in Rochester, but I'm too worried they would be ignored and destroyed.

Must be rare indeed- I can’t imagine very many of those survived their own time!  
 

(Edit- yeah, I guess “unique” is something more than just “rare indeed”.)

Edited April 29 by lordmarcovan

[akeady]

I suppose this is unusual - an eye from an ancient statue

Edited April 29 by akeady

[DonnaML]

Probably the French rifle bullet with which my maternal grandfather was wounded at Fort Douaumont at the Battle of Verdun in February 1916, when he was 21. It passed through his right wrist and entered his stomach, and after it was removed he kept and saved it for the next 45+ years. Unfortunately, he made the huge mistake of giving it to me when I was only about 7 years old, and I managed to lose it within the next six months. One of my great regrets! So, no photo of the bullet. I do have these two photos of him taken in the field hospital while he was recovering. Both are marked to indicate which one is my grandfather. There probably aren't too many similar photos around.

 

Edited April 30 by DonnaML

[ominus1]

...i have this Magic Lantern from back in the days before batteries and electricity ....but of course the Douglass dreamed they owned one 2 in an episode when they traveled in the way back machine...^^

[AncientOne]

This was manufactured by my great, great grandfather Lewis Fredrich Ganter.  

[jdmKY]

Not mine, but my wife’s. It’s her “herd” of silver cow creamers (I had no idea such a thing existed). All are European, most from the 19th century.

 

[JeandAcre]

@lordmarcovan, you sent me to Wiki for narwhals.  But Yep, there was a European trade in them going back to the Viking Age.  Wish you could stop me: whether owing to false advertising or mere wishful thinking, they were often considered unicorn horns.

I guess my weirdest thing (long gone) had to be a wooden cask, c. 1920's but looking more turn-of-the-century, with a tap at the bottom.  It was for some kind of vanilla extract.  Even with some of the stuff still in it, it was fun to look at, with most of the original paper labels still intact.  I don't remember it being more than two feet high.

...From when I was really low to the ground, we would often summer at an old house on an island in Puget Sound, owned by family friends.  (How old?  The front half eventually collapsed under its own weight.  ...As long as it held up, it was a Seriously fun house!  Staying there was somewhere on a spectrum starting with 'camping.')  The builder had run a still during Prohibition, and the barn across the path to the dock was Stuffed Full of miscellaneous detritus from that.  The current owners really didn't care what we walked off with.  While my big brother had the wit to opt for bottles, some of them likely valuable, I zeroed in on that cask.  My dad probably made me part with it, but it was fun to live with.  

[AETHER]

5 hours ago, akeady said:

I suppose this is unusual - an eye from an ancient statue

Can I provide more context? This is fascinating. Do u have more info about this eyetem?

Edited April 29 by AETHER

[akeady]

24 minutes ago, AETHER said:

Can I provide more context? This is fascinating. Do u have more info about this eyetem?

I got it in 2014 in a weekly "Ancient Peddler" sale from a guy who mostly sold coins and lives in a country where such things are found.   Unfortunately, I've no information on where he got it and can only speculate on what it came from.

Mind you, I played briefly with Photoshop tonight 😄

ATB,
Aidan.

[robinjojo]

Here's an oddity from that exercise in futility, the Prohibition Era.

It is a small "book" of poetry titled "The Four Swallows" (the pun will become obvious below).  Of course it is not a book at all, but instead a box that holds 4 tubes that one can fill with one's favorite, and illegal, libation or hooch.  There's a button on the spine that releases the top. This surreptitious device dates between 1921 and 1924.

This is the ideal way for a flapper and her boy friend or girl friend to get into the syncopated rhythm of the Charleston at the local speakeasy or gin joint!

 

Edited 21 hours ago by robinjojo

[Qcumbor]

The item I'll write about is both not coin related AND coin related.

During the first half of the 40's in then occupied Corsica, while there was a shortage of about everything, my grandad built a kind of weird tool to cut out stripes of pasta in order to get tagliatelle in the end. Nowadays you would use something like that for your DIY tagliatelle :

 

Back then he had the brilliant idea to save 20 holed 25 cts coin that were in use at the moment, like the one below

 

Then he had to wash them (hopefully), file them to have them sharp enough to cut pasta and arrange them as follows

 

I still have it with me, together with the sestertius he found at Verdun battle (pretty sure he wasn't the one who shot @DonnaML's grandad 🙂 , and he got shot himself during that battle).

 

I swear I've never used that "thing" to cook !

... and I made sure there's no key date in it (they would be ruined anyway 😄 )

 

Bon appétit !

Q

 

 

Edited May 4 by Qcumbor

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I'm semi-retired from the record collecting part, but I heavily collected original recordings (mostly 16" records/transcriptions) of old-time radio shows/news.  I have two copies of Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech, had copydisc of War of the Worlds, and of course one comes across bizarre or dirty shows/recordings.

 

[panzerman]

Interesting thread!

 

I picked up this artifact in a Paris antique shop. I was told it was a "Berber" dagger/ dating back to early 1800s. 

[DonnaML]

Another rather unusual item:  an April 8, 1927 handwritten letter from the author A.A. Milne to my father, age 6, who had written to Milne to ask him what the A.A. stood for.

[Bonshaw]

@DonnaML, That is the most wonderful family heirloom I have ever seen!

Edited April 30 by Bonshaw

[Phil Anthos]

In a box buried in my garage is a scorpion holding a globe made out of wool taken from socks. It was given to me by an old friend who was a prison guard at Folsom Prison in California, and he got it from Charles Manson, who made it from his own socks. It was a common theme for Manson, who saw the globe as the earth and the scorpion as the white man in control. Yes he was very twisted on many levels. 

If I ever dig it out again I will most certainly get rid of it!

~ Peter 

[Deinomenid]

Here's a Nile Club dirk, the club being of the surviving officers of the  British fleet at the Battle  of the Nile.

From the  Billy Ruffian, aka  HMS  Bellerophon. One of the most illustrious of the third rate ships of the line,  Napoleon surrendered aboard her amongst other things (things including  Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of the Glorious First of June, raider/escort against the US, Russia etc.)

 

[Phil Anthos]

1 hour ago, Deinomenid said:

Here's a Nile Club dirk, the club being of the surviving officers of the  British fleet at the Battle  of the Nile.

From the  Billy Ruffian, aka  HMS  Bellerophon. One of the most illustrious of the third rate ships of the line,  Napoleon surrendered aboard her amongst other things (things including  Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of the Glorious First of June, raider/escort against the US, Russia etc.)

 

That is really cool! I love this era and know most of the ships and engagements (not for nothing all that O'Brian, Lambdin and Pope), but ol' Billy was everywhere!  Even escorting Nelson's body home in a storm while severely damaged.

Hearts of oak indeed!

~ Peter 

 

[lordmarcovan]

11 hours ago, Qcumbor said:

The item I'll write about is both not coin related AND coin related.

During the first half of the 40's in then occupied Corsica, while there was a shortage of about everything, my grandad built a kind of weird tool to cut out stripes of pasta in order to get tagliatelle in the end. Nowadays you would use something like that for your DIY tagliatelle :

 

Back then he had the brilliant idea to save 20 holed 25 cts coin that were in use at the moment, like the one below

 

Then he had to wash them (hopefully), file them to have them sharp enough to cut pasta and arrange them as follows

 

I still have it with me, together with the sestertius he found at Verdun battle (pretty sure he wasn't the one who shot @DonnaML's grandad 🙂 , and he got shot himself during that battle). I swear I never use that "thing" to cook !

 

... and I made sure there's no key date in it (they would be ruined anyway 😄 )

 

Bon appétit !

Q

 

 

Brilliant!  What a wonderful, one-of-a-kind artifact!  (And I love pasta.)

His Verdun battlefield sestertius was already amazing enough!

[DonnaML]

4 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

Here's a Nile Club dirk, the club being of the surviving officers of the  British fleet at the Battle  of the Nile.

From the  Billy Ruffian, aka  HMS  Bellerophon. One of the most illustrious of the third rate ships of the line,  Napoleon surrendered aboard her amongst other things (things including  Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of the Glorious First of June, raider/escort against the US, Russia etc.)

 

Wow, that's pretty amazing! And speaking of the Bellerophon, this is probably my favorite Napoleonic-era medal -- my only Mudie medal in silver -- purchased at a Spink auction 25 years ago:

Great Britain, Surrender of Napoleon, 1815 (struck in 1820 as No. 37 in the James Mudie series of 40 medals commemorating British Military and Naval Victories). Obv. Bust of Napoleon right, uniformed; NAPOLEON BONAPARTE; signature below / Rev. British man of war Bellerophon, in full sail, with Imperial Eagle on flag staff; Napoleon stands on quarterdeck with right hand inside coat; another ship beyond; SURRENDERED TO H.B.M.S. BELLEROPHON CAPT. MAITLAND. Exergue: XV JULY. MDCCCXV; signatures below. By T. Webb/N.G.A Brenet. AR 41 mm., 38.8 g. Mudie 37 [James Mudie, An Historical and Critical Account of A Grand Series of National Medals (London 1820)]; Eimer 1078 (ill Pl. 116) [Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values (Spink, 2nd ed. 2010)]; BHM I 884 [Brown, Laurence, British Historical Medals Vol. I, 1760-1837 (Seaby 1980)]; David Thomason Alexander, A Napoleonic Medal Primer (2022), No. 164 (p. 166; ill. p. 167) (available at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/618630); Bramsen II 1691 [Ludvig Ernst Bramsen, Médaillier Napoléon le Grand, ou, Description des médailles, clichés, repoussés, et médailles-décorations relatives aux affaires de la France pendant le consulat et l'empire, Vol. II, 1810-1815  (Copenhagen 1907), available at Newman Numismatic Portal]. Purchased at Spink Auction 136, 7 Oct. 1999, Lot 992. 

Edited May 1 by DonnaML

[AncientJoe]

This nearly killed me. I was in San Francisco for a conference and went to one of the absurd decoration shops in Chinatown which are designed to fleece tourists. They happened to have a decent selection of gaudy   display minerals and for whatever reason, my wife and I decided we should buy one.

They ended up coming down a whopping 95% off of the (eye-watering) marked price; it was stuffed away in a corner so I can't imagine it was in heavy demand and we had shown at least a modicum of interest.

Lo and behold, a few minutes later, I paid and scheduled shipping... for a quartz crystal, which turned out to weigh over 400lbs. I love minerals but this is quite literally massive and dramatically under-estimated its size and the impracticality of moving it around, in part because it isn't rigidly attached to the base.

This picture below is from the original show room and doesn't do it justice.

They didn't help move it and instead just dropped off an Indiana Jones-style crate in front of our building. We had to scramble but managed to successfully move it in to our unit but hoisting it up required a jerry-rigged/MacGyver'd cantilever set up, rapidly moving it into place while it hopefully didn't separate and cause irreparable harm to us / our floors / the neighbors who live below.

Through some fortunate combination of luck, inertia, and adrenaline, we managed to get it in place. In hindsight, it wasn't remotely safe: there is a parallel universe in which we slipped slightly or overshot the angle and crashed through our window onto the street below... but thankfully we survived and now have a permanent fixture. We are not planning on moving any time soon and couldn't realistically move it any way...

Moving forward, I think I'll stick to coins purely because they're not likely to kill me if I nudge them with a vacuum. 

Edited May 1 by AncientJoe

[Finn235]

I have a couple unusual trinkets

First was given to me by my (very devoutly Catholic) grandmother - I was told it contains a small sliver of bone taken from the skeleton of Saint Francis of Assisi, but the Italian translation is "Dust from the tomb of Saint Francis" so I have honestly no clue what is in the tiny reliquary. The note along with it says that it was personally blessed by Pope Pius XII in the early 50s.

 

Another, a not four- but seven-leaf clover that I found when I was in elementary school. Couldn't tell you why but I was obsessed with 4 leaf clovers at the time, and I found a little cluster of patches on the outskirts of the playground that was a hotbed for them. I eventually tossed most of the 4 leaf clovers but kept this one.

[JeandAcre]

@Finn235, I'm not touching the bone-vs.-somebody-else's-dust issue.   

(One thing I still need about Protestantism is that it gives you more latitude to distrust organized religion generally.  Thank you, where that's concerned, no one ever had a monopoly.)

...That 7-leaf clover is on another level entirely.  Call this theology only if you need to.  But in that instance, the attribution and provenance kind of speak for themselves.

Edited May 1 by JeandAcre