Items of dead people

[Cupboard]

Do you possess items that once belonged to dead people? If so, what are they. I'm not talking about gifts, rather things that were in another person's possession, they died, and now you are holding onto them.

I have a pair of socks and a pocketknife from a grandfather, both of which I use regularly. A couple of paintings my grandmother held onto. And a lamp that was given as a wedding present to them in 1950. 

I have not had these items for very long but perhaps the items you own have significance to you? Maybe you don't have enough physical space for junk and would like to keep it that way! Just let us know

[Job]

I once owned not one, but two cars, that previously belonged to a dead guy. The same dead guy. 

 

Package deal from the estate. I made a tidy profit fixing them up and flipping them. I even got to keep or sell some of the more useful items they contained. 

 

He didn't seem to mind. 

[Captain Ventris]

By God, it's like I've been waiting for this thread for years!

 

More then a century ago, a relative on my mom's side of the family who went by the name Aunt Teeny (North Carolinians are weird), was due to be wed. However, several weeks before the wedding, her fiancé died in a tragic carriage accident. The fiancé's family had purchased a wooden chest filled with a number of items as her dowry. As part of their grieving, they decided to give Aunt Teeny the dowry regardless.

 

Many years later, on her deathbed, and for unknown reasons likely as Faulknerian in nature as the rest of my mother's family history, Aunt Teeny made it known that it was her wish that the dowry chest be passed down to the youngest member of each generation.

 

Over time, each generation has added items to the chest from their time, particularly as the people that owned them have passed away. It contains a visual history of eyeglasses, a jar of gallbladder stones (I know, right. Also a kidney stone jar!), a set of carting combs, a coin celebrating Kaiser Wilhelm's birthday, an array of various forms of currency from various times, a bandana promoting Grover Cleveland's candidacy in the 1888 election, my grandpa's tobacco pipe, a small study bible from 1811, an honest to god Nazi shoulder patch brought back from the war by a relative that fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and many other things.

 

Over the years, the chest has descended through the generations to end up in the hands of my mother, and on the event of her hopefully very eventual passing, will be mine to own.

[kristus]

I own a pair of my grandfather's patent shoes. I never met my grandfather because he died when my father was only nine years old in a construction accident.

 

My father and grandfather were home alone when my grandfather had an accident as he tore down the remains of the old barn. The structure fell over him and one of the logs hit him in the head. He didn't die immediately so my father took his bike to the neighbours who lived about a kilometer away for help. Even though after having got the neighbour my grandfather was still alive he couldn't be saved.

[Chezza]

My close friend's grandfather passed a couples years back. My mate gave me his rayband sunglasses.

[Nine Inch Heels]

I own some things that once belonged to my grandmother. The most important one to me personally is my grandmother's tea-bowl.

 

She used it for a long time, and it fell to the floor and broke a bunch of times over the decades. It's always been repaired by way of "kintsukuroi", or "kintsugi" as it's otherwise called. This has given the tea-bowl a very veiny and unique look over time, which symbolizes the efforts family members put into repairing it, over and over again.

 

I don't usually use it for my everyday tea-needs, not to mention that I'm not much of a "tea-person", when I look at how much coffee I consume over the course of a year in comparison. But that bowl is getting used at least twice a year during a tea ceremony I hold either on my grandmother's birthday, or the date she died, and the only type of tea I prepare in it this bowl is "fukamushicha". She taught me how to do these traditional japanese tea-ceremonies, so it's my way of showing her that I still can to do it properly, as well as it makes for a time on certain days which I spend with these many fond memories I have that involve her.

 

Obviously this tea-bowl has a lot of sentimental value for me.

[MFG38]

I have some dude's skull that I use as a candle holder.

[Guest]

...

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Guest

[Linguica]

After my grandmother died I was in her house to help clean it up before the estate sale and I took a jumbo roll of aluminum foil because, hey, free foil.

[HorrorMovieRei]

I have my Grandpa's WWII dog tags and some medals I think. And also a bunch of old photos from when he was young. Sadly he's dead now, and I never got to hear that many war stories because I saw him the most when I was a kid, and back then I was pure and didn't give a shit about war.

[geo]

I could write a book on this. To make a long story short... I shouldn't talk about it.

[Tracer]

I have an antique sidetable that my great grandparents owned.  It's in great condition.

[DoctorGenesis]

22 hours ago, Linguica said:

After my grandmother died I was in her house to help clean it up before the estate sale and I took a jumbo roll of aluminum foil because, hey, free foil.

That's probably the most metal way of getting a hold of foil.

[Uncle 80]

I recently picked up a shotgun. Some guy I don't even know just died, I was there and I decided to take it. Even had four shells in it!

[DoctorGenesis]

1 hour ago, Uncle 80 said:

I recently picked up a shotgun. Some guy I don't even know just died, I was there and I decided to take it. Even had four shells in it!

So you got it from an auction or were you at this guy's funeral and you stole it?

[Linguica]

He was making a Doom joke, cmon.

[Remilia Scarlet]

I have a few of my grandpa's things, like tools, a ring, camera case, and whatnot.  They're all extremely dear to me.

 

My wife has an old Russian medic bag from, we think, sometime around WWII.  The oldness smells amazing when we open it up.  She also has a US army canteen from Desert Storm that has someone's name on it.  But we have no idea if the person is still alive or not.

 

Then there's a poetry book she has that's over 100 years old.  Not sure who had it before, either.

[SaladBadger]

I don't directly have any hand-me-downs from dead relatives, but at my house we have a lot of machinery from my great-grandfather on my dad's side. He was always doing a lot of machinework throughout his life, and was really experienced with it. When he started having health issues he decided to give away stuff from his workshop to his children and grandchildren, and my dad was among them. Its all fairly old, and some of it isn't too useful to us, but other bits, my dad's gotten good use out of. My mother also has a lot of smaller things from her dead parents.

[Teivman]

I have a Luger that my great grandfather stole from a dead German soldier back in WW2. Well.. that's what he told me in his old story's. I have the weapon in a box somewhere.  This post might seem "over the top" But is is true. 

Edited June 8, 2017 by MrD!zone

[june gloom]

We have my grandpa's giant-ass boat of a car. Some other stuff of his too. I also own a shelf my dad built. I don't care where I end up, that shelf stays with me.

[Nine Inch Heels]

On 6.6.2017 at 8:12 PM, Linguica said:

After my grandmother died I was in her house to help clean it up before the estate sale and I took a jumbo roll of aluminum foil because, hey, free foil.

I see how it is:

[Battle_Korbi]

Umm... A long time ago, I was me. And also, some veteran with a drinking problem died, so the guys who do those honorable shots appeared on the funeral, and day after I found a casing of a 7.62x39 by the cemetery! Cool! I had lost it three months after though.

 

Also, one day I was walking my dog, and we both found a jaw belonging to a person who died a long time ago (the jaw was white as snow, pure bone. I always though these things rot and get all brown and stuff). After some intense wrestling, I secured the jaw, realized there were tons of ants underneath it, so I had thrown it far away, not before constricting my dog from running away after it.

 

Other than that, I wasn't given nor did I found any stuff that dead people once had. Strange. No one offered me a chance.

 

WELL... there was always that bazooka I found as a kid. It looks like this (found it after a quick google research)

Spoiler

The condition I had found it was pretty much... well...  non-working. The sights were gone, signs had been torn off, in the end it was a nice looking pipe with some cyrillic letters on it. But my parents thought it was actually usable, and pounded it from me, like:

 

Oh no we cannot our kid have this! What if he decides to use those 64-mm anti-tank missiles that we grow on the trees? Too dangerous! He could poke someone's eye put when combined with that!

 

I understand if it was a rifle, or god forbid, a actual live missile that I had found, but a launcher? A half of one at that?

[42PercentHealth]

11 hours ago, MrD!zone said:

I have a Luger that my great grandfather stole from a dead German soldier back in WW2. Well.. that's what he told me in his old story's. I have the weapon in a box somewhere.  This post might seem "over the top" But is is true. 

Wow! That's really awesome! :-D

 

Nothing impressive, but a WWII veteran I knew from church gave my brother and I each a necktie just a few months before he passed away. I still have the tie, even though I don't really have occasion to wear it anymore.

 

I also have a couple of antique rifles (an M1 Garand whose serial number dates between 1953-1954, and a Mosin Nagant from 1945), so their original owners are probably no longer with us.

[xttl]

I used to have a Commodore 1081 video monitor which, according to the previous owner, had once belonged to this person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukka_Tapanimäki (neither never knew him personally however). It's visible in this (bad) photo in the Doom wiki: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/File:1081.jpg

 

I guess that's kinda cool even though I personally haven't really been into C64 games after my childhood, I prefer NES/Famicom games as far as 8-bit gaming goes. SID music can be nice though!

 

I gave it away a while ago since I have a larger, better (well not in all respects actually, unfortunately) video monitor anyway that I can use with my old console whenever I still play with them at all.

[NEANDERTHAL]

I have a big-ass ceremonial sword that my grandfather used while on parade stowed underneath my bed.

[Kontra Kommando]

I have a lot of my friend's books. He gave for me to hold on to, as he as moving. However, he died in between that time, and I now have a whole library of books from him now. Most of them are classics, like the crucible, the prince, Plato's republic. Also there were some history books, fairtales and books about occult topics, like magic and satanism. He was a metalhead; he even had Lords of Chaos, which I read back in 2003.

 

As a matter of fact, he's been dead for 10 years now. He died in 2007, on my birthday.

 

 

[Agentbromsnor]

I own a few sweaters that used to belong to my grandpa, but I rarely wear them since I'm not the right gender for that sort of thing.

[Jaxxoon R]

I've got my grandmother's PS2 and her collection of JRPGs, a few dishes, and I think a few office supplies as well.