Author Topic: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?  (Read 31064 times)

steevven1

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #50 on: December 06, 2020, 09:29:09 PM »
Strangely, some of our oldest stuff is actually tech. Two ThinkPads still in regular service that we bought 10+ years ago, and several Nikon camera lenses older than that.

Jenny Wren

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #51 on: December 06, 2020, 11:32:41 PM »
My blowdryer and ruler tie for oldest right now, I got both my my freshman year of high school so they are 30 years old this year (eep)! There's technically a few books on the shelves that I've likely owned for at least that long.

As of Christmas morning, the new winner will be the fixed blade knife in my son's stocking. It was my dad's from when he was a teenager. I cleaned up and sharpened the blade, and DW replaced the wood grip that had cracked and made a new sheath.

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #52 on: December 07, 2020, 06:13:12 AM »
As of Christmas morning, the new winner will be the fixed blade knife in my son's stocking. It was my dad's from when he was a teenager. I cleaned up and sharpened the blade, and DW replaced the wood grip that had cracked and made a new sheath.

That sounds like a fantastic gift. Excellent!

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #53 on: December 07, 2020, 06:17:02 AM »
My father just downsized his home in retirement and gave a lot of old family stuff to other family members. My sister got his 1940s-era Victrola which she is having repaired so it can be used again. I remember listening to the 1960s-era Alvin and the Chipmunks album on it at Christmas when I was a little kid.

calimom

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #54 on: December 08, 2020, 11:23:25 PM »
I have a set of 4 nesting Pyrex bowls that were my grandmother's. From the 1940s, so 75 or so years of continuous use.

cerat0n1a

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #55 on: December 09, 2020, 02:58:02 AM »
I assume we can't count walls, floors and ceilings that have been continuously used to keep people warm and dry for several hundred years ;-) ? Some of our furniture has been in my wife's family for more than 100 years, and some of the things kept inside said furniture are older than that. Mostly treated as decoration (or clutter, as I prefer to think of it) rather than in daily use though. Our barometer is 19th century.

koziknight

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #56 on: December 16, 2020, 12:56:49 PM »
The comforter I use on my side of the bed (yes, DH and I have separate comforters - no blanket hogging fights here!) is from 1994. It's worn, but works great. Even DH uses it when I'm out of town because it has the right amount of weight to it.

gatortator

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #57 on: December 19, 2020, 07:11:23 PM »
Fun question! We have a cast iron pan and furniture from family that has been used continuously for 100+ years..

Us too!  We are the fourth generation to use the set of three cast iron skillets(8in 10in 12in) that we inherited  from my spouse's grandma.  We use them often.

SwordGuy

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #58 on: December 19, 2020, 08:41:38 PM »
I noticed something in the kitchen that I've used longer than my set of Winnie the Pooh books from when I was (also) very young.

It's the one remaining mug my mom brought back from France, where she lived when I was born.   It's several years older than I am and I've been drinking out of it since I was a wee lad.   Love it.  Hefty.  Great for a beer or to bash a grizzly bear's skull in.

Peony

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #59 on: December 20, 2020, 02:47:37 PM »
We have a cuisinart pro classic food processor that my husband took with him to college in 1998. Before that it belonged to his mother (She upgraded when he took the old one) and it has to be at least 30 years old. It is still going strong and is well used.
Cuisinart FTW! I have a Cuisinart "Little Pro" food processor that I was given for my 26th birthday, and I am now 58. So, 32 years (jeeeeebus how can I be so old?). It works fine, other than a small crack in the plastic bowl thingy.

Retireatee1

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #60 on: December 20, 2020, 03:06:03 PM »
I have a vintage Prolon dinnerware set that is older than I am.  It still works great except you can't put it in the microwave.

Rural

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #61 on: December 20, 2020, 03:46:23 PM »
My great grandmothers cast iron skillet dates from between 1890 and 1920.


My Singer treadle sewing machine (used irregularly, but it's the only machine I use) was made in 1928. It's not my grandmother's, though. Someone else got that, so this one I bought at a swap meet about 15 years ago.


My husband's grandfather's tiller from sometime in the 1960s. Gets regular use for a tiller, which is to say every spring.

Nutty

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #62 on: December 23, 2020, 09:43:16 AM »
Mom's cast iron dutch oven gets used very regularly.  I don't remember when she got it, but it was with her before I was.  I got it going off to college.

DW's got her mother's promise ring who got it from her husband, oh so long ago.  MIL is 88, so 70 years old.  Pretty little piece of platinum from a little shop in New York, Tiffany's.  Yes, we were shocked when we found this out.  To MIL, it was just her promise ring.

Thanks for reminding me of Mom.

MicroRN

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #63 on: December 23, 2020, 09:50:27 AM »
About 30 years ago,  my uncle (a contractor) rescued a Kitchenaid stand mixer from a house that burned down.   The owners said insurance would replace it, so he took it home and replaced the cord,  which was damaged.  Still worked fine,  so he gave it to my cousin.   When she got married,  she was given a new mixer,  and she passed this one on to me.  I've had it for about 20 years,  and use it several times a week.   It's not beautiful - it was originally white and was yellowed by the fire - but it still works perfectly.  I do all kinds of baking with it,  grind meat,  and make ice cream.   

ShellyFlorida

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #64 on: December 23, 2020, 12:42:54 PM »
Interestingly enough, I too had a long used laundry basket until about 3 years ago. Mine had been in use for 43 years (from age 8 - 51.) It was still in good condition but I put a towel in it that had been used outside and then put it to the side and didn't address. It was too nasty when I went back and I just threw it all away.

Sugaree

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #65 on: December 29, 2020, 11:02:47 AM »
About 30 years ago,  my uncle (a contractor) rescued a Kitchenaid stand mixer from a house that burned down.   The owners said insurance would replace it, so he took it home and replaced the cord,  which was damaged.  Still worked fine,  so he gave it to my cousin.   When she got married,  she was given a new mixer,  and she passed this one on to me.  I've had it for about 20 years,  and use it several times a week.   It's not beautiful - it was originally white and was yellowed by the fire - but it still works perfectly.  I do all kinds of baking with it,  grind meat,  and make ice cream.


I love my KA mixer.  Like, built a cabinet in my kitchen specifically for it.  I would consider giving it up if I could find an older model like that.  The Hobart-built mixers are the best.

Babybalrog

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #66 on: January 06, 2021, 03:03:03 PM »
I got various items from the 70s, cookwear etc. But that's not so impressive. My pride and joy (besides cast iron) is my Desk.

When my parent bought their first house in the 1970s there was a desk on the curb. The previous owners didn't know how to maneuver it out of the house, the they CUT IT IN HALF instead! My parents being young and poor, put it back together with new trim and a Formica top. My Dad used it for decades before upgrading, and now I've had it for decades too. No providence on its owners before us, but based on the style I would say its from the 1930's or 40's.

If there are two things that are going to make this list for people it's going to be furniture and cast iron cookware. My mom always told me to buy Ethan Allen, because, while it's more expensive, there stuff last for generations. The one chair I bought from a store, didn't come from there,  but was a floor model, tube steel, wood clad chair. My grandkids will love it one day.

Alternatepriorities

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #67 on: January 06, 2021, 03:19:54 PM »
About 30 years ago,  my uncle (a contractor) rescued a Kitchenaid stand mixer from a house that burned down.   The owners said insurance would replace it, so he took it home and replaced the cord,  which was damaged.  Still worked fine,  so he gave it to my cousin.   When she got married,  she was given a new mixer,  and she passed this one on to me.  I've had it for about 20 years,  and use it several times a week.   It's not beautiful - it was originally white and was yellowed by the fire - but it still works perfectly.  I do all kinds of baking with it,  grind meat,  and make ice cream.

We were just given a Kitchenaid for Christmas. I hope it lasts us 30 years

I have a finish hammer I've been using for 37 years. It was all I could swing when my father gave it to me I still use it pretty frequently.

Our Corelle plates and bowls were used when they were given to DW's parents as a wedding gift in the early 70's and we use them daily.

Our kitchen table and chairs are my father's parents and are generally agreed to have been purchased sometime in the mid '40s. It could use a little work now that I'm FI...

jinga nation

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #68 on: January 06, 2021, 03:27:02 PM »
I think ours is this: https://www.amazon.com/SAWA-DELUXE-SWEDISH-COOKIE-PRESS/dp/B005IDVPCG

We have one from 1982, when my visiting aunt gifted it to my mum. We have it now, wife, kids and myself fight over who gets to press the cookies. And which shapes get picked.

Blackeagle

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #69 on: January 06, 2021, 04:57:08 PM »
I’ve got a stainless steel saucepan that my Mom took from her mother when she went off to college in the ‘60s and I took from her when I went off to college in the ‘90s.  Some other pots, pans, and silverware I inherited from my grandmother that are probably 40-50 years old at this point (nothing nice, I got it because I happened to be the only relative living locally when she passed an no one else wanted it).

I have a couple of firearms that are 70+ years old, but I picked them up used and have no idea whether they were in continuous use before I bought them. 

An antique safe that belonged to my great-grandfather and is definitely over 100 years old.  It’s no longer being used as a safe, but you might loosely count it as “in use” (it’s next to my bed as a nightstand).  A couple of books I took from the family farmhouse that are 100+ years old (some Jules Verne novels, textbooks that my Grandmother and Great Aunt used, and a book about the Great War published while WWI was still going on).  Considering I’ve never really cracked them open these probably shouldn’t count as in use though.

waltworks

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #70 on: January 06, 2021, 07:32:22 PM »
We have a 1950s (back when Hobart was making the motors/guts) Kitchenaid mixer that we use regularly and was used regularly by its previous (MIL, grandmother-in-law) owners from new.

If we're just counting items we acquired new, I have a wallet I bought at age 7 at a garage sale that I still use, that is only vaguely identifiable at this point.

-W

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #71 on: January 08, 2021, 06:47:44 AM »
A couple of books I took from the family farmhouse that are 100+ years old (some Jules Verne novels, textbooks that my Grandmother and Great Aunt used, and a book about the Great War published while WWI was still going on).  Considering I’ve never really cracked them open these probably shouldn’t count as in use though.

Oh, if we're going to count books, then I'll change mine to the copy of Jonathan Swift's works that I own that's from 1757. I picked it up in my old hometown's bookstore and it had been brought to town by settlers back in the day. I also own an Act of the British Parliament from 1745, but that's not bound. You can find some interesting things up on Hillbilly Mountain when you look in the right places.

Raenia

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #72 on: January 08, 2021, 08:47:46 AM »
My grandfather's Craftsman table saw - Dad gave it to us last year, since we had a ton of house projects starting, DH does woodworking as a hobby, and Dad is getting older and doesn't do as many projects anymore.  It's been in reasonably continuous use since Grandpa bought it from the Sears catalog.  Probably late 40's-early 50's based on some quick research.

We also have a number of books inherited from grandparents or great-grandparents, including a Coronation Souvenir Book from the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and a 1912 Orations of Cicero.  I can't claim those have been in continuous use, though.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2021, 08:51:57 AM by Raenia »

Lookilu

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #73 on: January 10, 2021, 01:05:54 PM »
My mom's Lo-Heet sauce pots, bought after WW2 "When you could start buying that kind of stuff again," as my mom said. The covered skillet is long gone, although I remember my dad using it to make popcorn and round steak with white gravy when I was a kid.
I always think of the saucepots as the 'mashed potato' pans since they're what my mom always used, and when I use them my mashed potatoes always come out perfectly. Thanks, Mom!

Laserjet3051

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #74 on: January 10, 2021, 03:40:47 PM »
A lobster/crab/nut cracker. Mom absconded with one from a restaurant back in 1979. Brought it back home and it became a permanent part of our kitchenware, that is until I moved out for college. And with each and every move in, and after college, I shuttled this cracker to my next abode. To this day, I still have, and use it as intended.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #75 on: January 10, 2021, 04:35:59 PM »
I have some Corelle dinnerware given me by my grandmother.

I think it's about 40 years old.



 

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #76 on: January 10, 2021, 04:53:49 PM »
The comforter I use on my side of the bed (yes, DH and I have separate comforters - no blanket hogging fights here!) is from 1994. It's worn, but works great. Even DH uses it when I'm out of town because it has the right amount of weight to it.

I had a feather bed that was ~100 years old.

ExExpress

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #77 on: January 14, 2021, 01:20:49 PM »
I had a bath towel rip while in use on me last week, I realized it was a college purchase and is at least 18 years old now. It and a mate are still in rotation, getting near the definition of threadbare but still functional.

Maturin

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #78 on: January 14, 2021, 05:42:12 PM »
Taylor acoustic guitar - 19 years
Leatherman wave - 9 years

Anon-E-Mouze

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #79 on: January 14, 2021, 06:29:39 PM »
I have a beautiful wood box that belonged to my great grandfather and dates back to the 1880s, at least. He kept a small medicine kit in when he lived as a missionary in the Arctic. My grandmother and then my father used it for keepsakes, and I've had since I was in my early 20s. I keep letters, special jewelry and other small items in it.

Serendip

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #80 on: January 15, 2021, 12:34:24 PM »
A sewing basket that I received for Christmas in grade 5 or 6. I still sew and it still is in great condition.


Spiffy

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #81 on: January 17, 2021, 04:00:51 PM »
Well, we like old things and have lots of antique furniture, old books, musical instruments, and pottery, etc. that are in continuous use. But if you mean random items that we have that were bought new and have just lasted a long time, for me it is a Kitchen Aid K45 stand mixer. My Mom got it in the mid 70s and I grew up using it. When she got a larger KA, she gave me the old one. So I have been using that mixer most of my life! I was born in 1971 and I think the mixer is from around 1975 and is still in excellent condition with a strong motor. Love that thing. My husband still uses the digital alarm clock that he had as a child. It has huge red numbers and plastic wood grain body. Last year it started going wonky and and only showed half of the numbers. I was happy, thinking he would get a new one. But he is handy with electronics and was able to take it apart and resolder some wires (don't really know what he did to it) and fixed the dang thing. So it is still waking him up 40 years later.

Dicey

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #82 on: January 18, 2021, 08:07:09 PM »
Oh, I thought of something! I have a Sunbeam Oskar food processor from the mid-eighties. It was introduced in 1983 and I think I got it for Christmas a few years later. Google says it sold for about $70 when it was new. Ebay and Amazon have new-looking used models for quite a bit more than that, so I guess it's held its value and then some. It still works like a champ. I typically use it at least once a week.

Dreamer40

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #83 on: January 19, 2021, 11:47:14 AM »
I have a few 40-year-old dish towels from my parents' wedding. They used them almost 20 years then gave them to me when I went to college so I've used them the next 20 years. They're faded but still work amazingly well. I have no idea how that's possible!

koziknight

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #84 on: January 20, 2021, 11:17:54 AM »
The comforter I use on my side of the bed (yes, DH and I have separate comforters - no blanket hogging fights here!) is from 1994. It's worn, but works great. Even DH uses it when I'm out of town because it has the right amount of weight to it.

I had a feather bed that was ~100 years old.

That's incredible!

Catbert

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #85 on: January 22, 2021, 03:48:14 PM »
Things I purchased in the early 1970s:

4 wine glasses bought with Green stamps originally a set of 8? 6?
glass salad bowl also bought with Green stamps
wicker dirty clothes basket with lid

Things DH1 brought to the marriage purchased in 1960s (maybe 50s)

large Tupperware which holds 10+ lbs flour
large Tupperware which holds 10+ lbs sugar
Several good quality pots and pans of unknown brand
3 Corningware casserole dishes with the "original" blue flower emblem on the side
flatware set

Probably lots of other things.  What can I say, I'm old.

DeniseNJ

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #86 on: January 25, 2021, 05:07:00 AM »
This past Christmas season, while rolling out dough, my rolling pin broke. The metal part holding one handle slipped out of the rolling part. I couldn't believe it. I stood there shocked. How could this break? It was practically new! . . . Oh, wait. . . it was thirty years old. Woops.

I just bought it when dh and I moved in together when I was 20, just a few years ago. Except I'm turning 50 and it was actually 30 yrs ago!  It seems like just yesterday.

former player

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #87 on: January 25, 2021, 03:03:48 PM »
I was folding laundry today and noticed that one of the sheets had my grandfather's name on it.  He died in 1966.  The sheet would have stayed with my grandmother until she died in 1976, it would then have gone to my aunt who died in 2002, when it came to me.  It's a very good quality white cotton sheet, now getting a little worn.  When it wears out it will go on to other purposes and I will liberate one of its fellows from the chest of drawers in the spare room to replace it.

Mr. Green

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #88 on: January 26, 2021, 05:05:20 PM »
We just had to throw away my pine dresser after the new year because we got mold in our storage unit. Everything went into storage in May 2020 and would have come back out this May when we moved into a new place. I've had that dresser since I was 5, so 32 years. I still have the desk that went with it, complete with stickers on the side from my childhood. My wife has a few things of her great grandmother's but we've only had possession of them for probably 15 years.

Digger1000

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #89 on: January 29, 2021, 12:28:42 PM »
My couch turned 35 last August, I bought it in 1985. My recliner I got used from my folks 20 years ago.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2021, 12:33:26 PM by Digger1000 »

Digger1000

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #90 on: January 29, 2021, 12:32:43 PM »
I have my grandmothers mothers dresser and I am over 50 years old. I also have her binoculars and magnifying glass And scissors. 
I have some pots and pans my parents owned since before I was born that are slowly beginning to break. It is funny now when old things break my husband and I initially get upset then we stop and think “well we have been using it for over 30 years now” ha ha This just happened with our air compressor.
Yeah I guess both my dresser and desk in my bedroom were my moms when she was single in the 60s and 70s. I've had them as mine since I was very young at home.

My kitchen table and chairs were my grandparents who raised me and I remember sitting at it in the 70s.

keyvaluepair

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #91 on: January 29, 2021, 02:29:12 PM »
(1) A dresser from my great grandparents > 100 years old
(2) My car - 1995 Honda Civic DX
(3) My watch - an old Tissot from my dad ~ 50 years old now.

What can I say, I'm cheap.

skyrefuge

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #92 on: February 07, 2021, 01:28:55 PM »
My Tupperware cereal bowl. It must be something like 40 years old, and I have used it nearly every day throughout its life for my morning bowl of Cheerios. Like, literally 300+ days per year, for 40 years.

Cast iron pans and stuff like that makes sense to my brain, but a hunk of 70s/80s direct-marketed plastic?!? How has this thing survived nearly unscathed, still flexible through all these years and countless dishwasher cycles? There's the joke that they should make the whole airplane out of whatever make they black-box out of, but I think even better would be to make the airplane out of Tupperware!

Incidentally, for the past decade of its life, this is the bowl from which I've eaten using Mr. Money Mustache’s Amazing Save $100 on Cereal Per Year Trick, and like him, I discovered that mixing oats into my beloved Cheerios really just tastes better, and the hundreds of dollars it's saved me is just incidental at this point.

nessness

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #93 on: February 09, 2021, 02:14:55 PM »
I regularly use a pot that my mom gave me about 10 years ago, that she bought used at a flea market around 1980. She thinks it was probably made in the 1960s or before.

Omalley

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #94 on: February 14, 2021, 02:17:29 PM »
We use our 65 year old electric stove nearly every day.  It came to us in 1999 when we purchased a starter home.  It was original to the house built in 1956.  In 1999 we replaced two burners found in a dusty box in the corner of a local appliance shop and no issues since then.  It doesn't really match our current kitchen, but is a daily reminder of being a good steward of our resources. 

Most of the other appliances in our home have been rebuilt over the years.  I was disappointed a couple of years ago when I couldn't inexpensively fix our 1996 microwave.  However, I have managed to sell enough parts from the old microwave to cover half the amount we paid for a new one!

FIRE Artist

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #95 on: February 14, 2021, 06:50:38 PM »
Fun thread.

I have a Rubbermaid brand cutlery drawer insert that was in my parents kitchen from some time in the 80’s, my mom gave it to me for my first apartment back in ‘93, and I still use it to this day.  When my mom visited a few years back (I live far, far away from her), she was surprised to see it still in use, and had even forgotten who she had given it to. 

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #96 on: February 26, 2021, 09:32:32 AM »
The other day my brother was talking about how he wished he still had the JC Penny long underwear shirt that he had when he was a kid. I said, "This one?" and showed him the undershirt I was wearing. It was the same one he had as a kid from the 1990s! It was a hand me down to me, and I still wear it. It's great quality, 100% cotton, American made, very soft layer. I got a kick out of the coincidence.

midweststache

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #97 on: February 26, 2021, 10:50:03 AM »
Our dishes are hand-me-downs from my husband's parents, who received them as wedding gifts in the late 70s. They were used daily until the now-in-laws finally decided to upgrade their dishes. They gave this old set to us in 2010 (we'd recently moved in together) because they were still good - my MIL just didn't like the aesthetics. We've used them every day since (just over a decade), but they've been in constant use within our family for over 40 years.

They're old school white Corel with the most 70s floral yellow/brown/orange pattern on them. They're glorious and I love them a lot, and (as I've told my husband) they will have to be pried them from my cold dead hands for me to part with them.

Tinker

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #98 on: February 26, 2021, 11:35:51 AM »
I do have a shirt from a festival which will be half my age next year.
It's still being worn, but getting a little stiff. It'll probably be framed for its birthday :)

otherwise, the usual. Tools, pots... very hard to break some items.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2021, 12:53:57 PM by Tinker »

E.T.

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Re: Longest owned continuously used item in your home?
« Reply #99 on: February 26, 2021, 12:45:24 PM »
I feel really lucky that most of our furniture and decor is hand me downs, it's like having a house filled with hugs from grandparents, great grandparents, and great aunts on both my side and my spouse's side of our family. I have no idea what the ages of the different pieces are but it's a happy clutter of things that look 20s, 50s, 60s, 80s and a couple modern things. I think the little side table my plant is on is more than 100 years old. We pull out that table every time we play board games as a side holder for pieces and drinks so it does get regular use beyond holding a plant. Our dining room table still has imprints in the wax of me and my sister's handwriting when we used to do homework on it at my grandma's house as little kids. We also have the classic grandma's cast iron pans and lots of dishes from family. Maybe the most used things are me and my husband's wedding rings, they were an amazing gift when we got engaged from my grandparents who are still alive and still happily married after 65 years. It felt like being honored with the mantle of love and commitment. We plan to do the same for our future children or grandchildren someday if we have the opportunity and they seem like the type of people who would enjoy that.