My Most Prized Possession (other than a unicycle :))

Off-topic
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I thought it would be neat to see what type of items are of value to you. What little something or story has a lot of memories wrapped around it or what takes on a special prominence in your life, maybe something that you will hand down to the next generation someday.

Here’s one for me. I spent some great high school years in the late '70s in southern Maryland living just off the beach of the Chesapeake Bay. We lived in an all cedar home in the woods and had some great family times. One of the things to do was spend time on the beach hunting for fossilized sharks teeth. Here are two of my favorites (sadly one has broken over the years).

The biggest one I’d ever seen was an 8 lb., 8 inch tooth found by a park ranger friend. I believe the tooth is now in a museum somewhere. We also found many horseshoe crab shells, sand dollars, and other great stuff. Just don’t swim in the Bay when the sea nettles are running. Other great memories are of grand Maryland blue crab feasts (I even had my own crab pots) and bluefish fishing.

I keep these two sharks teeth on my desk as a reminder of good times.

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I have a picture of my best friend ever.
He got me through so many rough times and even saved my life twice.
He died from a heroin overdose.

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I am not oriented towards the past so prized possession is something I need to use in the future but I can’t replace if broken:
first in line : my Boosey & Hawkes fluegelhorn … they don’t make it any more :frowning: (so I am interested in buying one more just in case … none found for the moment).

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Those old Boosey & Hawkes horns play like no other. Built like a tank, too. Nice thick silver plating and thick brass, before all this perfectly proportioned computer controlled stuff. Is it from mid-20th century?

My most prized possession is my Willson 2955 Euphonium.

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My guitar. It’s only a beginner Fender Strat, but I’ve still had it for almost two years, and it’s been kind to me.

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Got a photo, Alex? Would love to see it.

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Out in the garage I have an 8" reflector telescope which I take out on clear nights. I get no end of fun hunting for other galaxies and studying the moon and the planets. Lately I’ve been trying to find Comet 8P/Tuttle but on the nights when I could get out there my skies were clouded over.

I wonder if there are any other astronomers in here, (amateur or professional).

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That is indeed a very nice quarter.

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Here’s one of my most prized possessions, a money clip that I got from my uncle’s small estate after he died of a heart attack at age 50.

Steve lived in a small trailer in Eastern Washington, and lived the life of a cowboy. He worked in construction, never earning much, but he loved his three horses. He also enjoyed photography, sometimes selling his stunning rodeo photographs. Rodeos were one of his favorite past times, as well. He rode bulls in his younger days, and then moved to team roping.

I loved visiting Steve from time to time (I was about 8 when he died, so this was when I was pretty little), and we’d spend all weekend riding horses and attending local rodeos. It was fun “roughing it” in the extremely rural community for a few days, and doing “cowboy stuff.”

I would look at all the neat stuff he had: antlers, guns, knives, ropes, old coins that my grandpa had collected, rocks he’d found in the desert, belts, blankets from trades with Native Americans, and of course, his money clips. I’d never leave for home empty handed - Steve always had something I could keep.

He’d given me an older, simpler money clip of his when I was visiting one time. I prized it, but the money clip he used was even cooler. I admired it, and he said I could have it one day when he got a new one.

Well, he never got a new one. Less than a year later, he died of a heart attack that was initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia. This money clip was in his pocket when he died at the hospital 4 days before Christmas.

Now I have it, and it is definitely one of my most prized possessions.

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Very cool story!

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:slight_smile:

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I get more attached than most people to my ‘things’. I love my cameras, mp3 players, computer, PDA, photo albums. I suppose my favourite is my computer.

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That, too. :slight_smile:

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My most prized posessions are my flintlock rifles. I’ll have to get some pics up for y’all to appreciate them.

My poppa spent many an evening in his shop, whistling along to Beethoven on the radio or watching Night Court on his little B&W TV while making these beautiful relics.

Nearly every part was made by hand, with tools also made by hand: forged in our wood stove and hammered out on an anvil made of a tree stump and a section of railroad track. Some rifles could be made in a couple weeks, others took months.

He’d even go to museums and libraries to study actual rifles from the 1800s, to learn the details and differences that’d indicate the rifle’s region of origin, the status of its owner and its intended purposes.

He’d hammer out bits of silver and gold to lay in to the rifle’s stock. He’d hand-carve elegant scrollwork and details into the wood, then cover it with a couple dozen coats of stain and oil to bring the grain out and make it shine as if it were metallic.

Some of these rifles are museum pieces… stunning beauties that could also be used to knock a fly off a dog’s butt at 100 yards. What makes them so valuable to me are the memories associated with them… the best times my dad and I had together were working on his rifles, then taking 'em out into the yard for target practice.

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Wow! Can’t wait to see them.

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Jason, those sound awesome.

Bruce - I would post a picture of my guitar, but I don’t have a digital camera I can use right now (I’m at my dad’s house in AL right now)…however, this is a picture of the model I have right now.


Mine’s got this leather strap that I love. It’s fairly simple, but it’s thick enough that it doesn’t hurt my shoulder, and the holes are small, so it stays on the guitar without coming off easily. It also looks pretty cool.

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You might think it is my giant slide rule but it is in fact my Lego watch.

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mmm i have a peice of the Berlin Wall (small)… i like it …

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That’s a cool one. One of our faculty was in Berlin when they were tearing it down. He picked up a fist sized chunk and brought it to the lab. It resides in our lunchroom.

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I don’t know how special it is to me yet, however it’s a tiny bit interesting.

On new years day I stole a loose screw from a plank of wood at the end of southend pier. It’s the longest pier in the country (or world (or something like that)) open to the public, and I may well be responsible for it falling down :stuck_out_tongue: .