Ask Lemmy

We have an accordion played by my great grandfather.

Several knives, blades, and daggers in my dad's knife collection belonged to his grandfather, and were passed down to his father. He says he plans on dividing the collection among his kids when the time comes.

Knives mean a lot in our family. We each got our first pocket knife on our 8th birthday, the same way our dad got his first one. Knife safety (especially passing a knife) is part ritual, part common sense. We give them as gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and Easter. It's a way of making sure the people we love the most will always have the oldest and most useful tool mankind ever invented in their pocket.

I know it's considered bad luck in some cultures, but to us, it's a heartfelt act of love. I'll be honored to have my father's knife one day.

Not really. My wife has some bulky furniture that we plan on tossing out once her mother dies. It's worthless and of no practical use, which is probably why she passed it by on already.

My grandparents had some cool stuff, but their children got in an argument over some of it, so I don't know who got what and I don't want anything to do with that. Hopefully they're happy with ruining their relationships over items that belong in a museum.

I have 2 rifles with bayonets and a wakizashi that my grandfather acquired from WWII, and a level that my carpenter great-grandfather used.

Only things I've had passed down to me like that have been guns.

I don't have the room for half of the furniture my mother tried to give me. She wanted me to take an old dining table that's the size of my current living room.

I don't have any official heirlooms, but I like to bake, and have inherited a few quality vintage mixing bowls that my grandparents - and later my parents - used, so I consider them to be heirlooms at this point.

I have a brosh and my cousin has the earrings my great great great whatever wore when she was painted by Monet. Whenever he went to the Netherlands he always stayed at my family. She wears mourning clothes and jewelry.

Here's the painting, which hangs at the Kruller Muller museum in Apeldoorn The Netherlands.

You mean like, from my victims?

Yup, I've got quite a few things by now, and I'm in line for some more.

I don't know about a sense of belonging, but a historical thing you're tangentially connected to is cooler than just a random historical thing.

we have a box filled with baby teeth going back about 8 generations.

we have another box filled with locks of baby hair.

and I haven't even mentioned the box of babies yet.

No. We used to have many. My grandparents kept them. After they died, my parents, aunts, and uncle threw everything that wasn't worth money into a dumpster. They kept the jewelry, coins, watches, and other valuables; everything worth less than $50 got trashed. Photo albums, collars from old pets, pictures they drew as children, sentimental trinkets, my grandpa's pocket knives, my great grandpa's letters home during the war for Czech independence, all of it, gone. A lot of it had been stuff I did in school or pictures of me.

"What do you want that for? It ain't worth nothing," they would tell me when I asked to keep anything.

People suck.

I have a painting of the Australian desert that belonged to my mother. It's banished to the second bedroom because it's got a thick coating of nicotine, but I plan to have it cleaned some day.

No I don't.

Yes, just a few things:

My great-great-grandfather’s portrait, bayonet and a copy of his discharge papers from his Civil War service.

The flag from my grandfather’s coffin.

There are things I’d like to have/keep in the family when my parents pass.

I try. I like hand sized mementos. Less likely to lose and not bulky enough to be a burden.

I have a diary of my grandma that she wrote during her evacuation from cologne in 1943, and I have an old mandolin my grandfather bought from a homeless man on a street. That meant my grandmother wouldn't be able to buy food for their 13 children so she was pissed af, but that makes great story for this instrument.

I have a few, and created one of my own. I have a steamer trunk that's been in the family for 5 or more generations, the family Bible from who knows how far back, and proposed to my wife with the ring my papa used to propose to my mom. I also had a sword forged for my wedding, engraved with our family name. While I don't intend to have children I plan on passing these things down to my nephews when the time comes

For some, yes, for others it’s just stuff that takes up space. The reality of today is there’s often not going to be the financial capacity to hold onto much. Boomers had excess space because they could afford big houses with large garages and outbuildings on large tracts of land.

Even a quarter acre plot is large by today’s shithole subdivision standards. Garages are reduced down to barely fit a vehicle, and driveways likely won’t hold the length of a full sized truck. Basements have been taken away. Shared walls instead of yards on single family townhomes instead of homes.

Even on antiques roadshow, unless it’s Tiffany, knick knacks and general clutter without use items are continuously down in price.

Few have the luxury of space any more.

Take a trip through the online auction markets. Not warehouse returns/junk, just the estate dissolutions with on site pickups after purchase. Or companies like CTBids that operate nationally and do estate downsizing for elderly selling their houses for assisted living situations or small condos, in addition to full estate auctions.

You’re scrolling pages and pages of “crap” inheriting families were going to toss out or things they couldn’t afford to store and keep.

A bit voyeuristic, but you’ll quickly see what people value now. China? No. You can’t use it because you can’t microwave it. Lots of knick knack crap selling for under $5, life collections and such. The useful stuff bids up pretty high. Tools. Even expired MREs. Not collections.

The real prize is the house, and the auction house clears the valuables turned clutter from it faster than families can.

We call them trophies and I invoke my fifth amendment rights.

I don't like things much, it feels oppressive to try to hang on to them. I have a very few that I value. A gun cabinet my dad converted to a shelved cabinet. The harmonica my grandpa played. That may be it, actually. My mom gave me many photographs, I suck at organizing and preserving them, not sure why she gave them to me. I have also 2 other furniture pieces from my grandma's house but it's the gun cabinet I won't part with.

I have lived in the same place a long time and not a big believer in heritage - go 10 generations back and you have 1,024 people who are your great-to the power of 10-parents. Anyone who says they are descended from someone is picking and choosing to create a story. So I feel as belonged as I care to, by belonging to the place I live I guess.

My grandparents were not wealthy people. They were products of the Great Depression. They kept nearly everything they ever and bought and every major purchase was carefully calculated.

I only ever saw my grandad wear one watch. A Timex from probably the late 1980's. I would guess it cost < $20 new at Walmart back then.

It still works. I usually only wear it for special occasions. I've spent way more than it's value having jewelers maintain it over the last 25 years.

I still miss the old man. You can't put a price tag on those memories.

So, yes*.

I have a few objects of importance that have been passed down but I don't like to horde stuff. For me it can't just be something they owned but something they valued or actually used.

And admittedly something that isn't outrageously large and/or broken.

Yes. The thing is, I is po'. My grandma was rich. I have been saddled with "the Narnia cupboard" which only fits when you have high ceilings (one of those with vases), and a matching desk. So whenever I move, I have to figure out if they fit and also hope the removals guys know how to put Narnia together without dropping the damn doors (again).

I'm getting shot of them as soon as my mother passes away. I have some lovely paintings my grandma did and that's enough where heirlooms are concerned.

Sadly I was the black sheep of the family and having nothing from my side. I really wanted this chair from my grandma and my grandpa's grandfather clock. Or really anything. My grandma made her own cards and I would have been happy with her stamp collection which no one else in the family wanted. My mom sold them without even offering me a chance to buy them.

On my wife's side though we've become what I call "The Keepers of the Ancient Ways".

We have been handed the old family recipes. We have been handed trunks of family photos that I'm slowly digitizing. We actually ended up in my wife's grandpa's house that my wife basically grew up in. I'm trying to compile as many stories from relatives as I can. We are slowly building a family tree (if you want any advice just holler. There's a lot of pitfalls newbies miss).

We try to collect only the truly meaningful things so we can document them but my wife's family has strong hoarder tendencies so we walk a line.