Tomorrow's Vintage

Belloq: "Look at this. It's worthless - ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark."

I'm sure many of us know this all too well as collectors of rare items which are almost brand new in comparison to what Indy and Belloq were after.

But is there anything from today that you will lovingly preserve? Things that may be worth something to your children, or their children.

We quite possibly discard trash each day that will be treasure to them.

I doubt it, Chinese-made plastic crap doesn't last well

I'm definitely going to preserve my reproduction vintage clothing and shoes. That might be all we have left of the styles we like in the near future!

In the non-vintage realm, I am definitely going to preserve my own photography and negatives as well as my cameras. Photography is one of my many passions and I would hate for those things get thrown away after I'm gone.

I have a couple very nice dresses that I've bought for special occasions and the like. Even if they don't fit anymore, I'm boxing them up and saving those puppies! I wish my mother and grandmother had done this, so I'll do it for my kids.

Also, I'm preserving all of my books for my future (very, very future) children. I've got a couple that date back to the 1920's, so I'm sure by the time they're around, those books will be priceless.

And of course pictures, letters, journals and other personal affects. Who knows, they may be terribly interesting in the future!

I collect childrens books so i've already boxed those babies up and keeping them safe for future miss carolines. Also, clothing and the like.
photographs, particular pieces of jewelry.
I wish my mum and grandma had kept things for me.

I buried an obsolete cell phone in a time capsule last November. In 100 years, I think it will be of interest, though hardly a rarity - there are jillions of them!

I tend to buy technology that is unique in design. I sold an old mobile phone for twice what I originally paid for it, and the phone was less than 10 years old. I'm still holding on to old PDAs like my beloved Apple Newton (anybody remember that one?) and would be inerested to see whatthey go for years from now.

saturnoir said:

I tend to buy technology that is unique in design. I sold an old mobile phone for twice what I originally paid for it, and the phone was less than 10 years old.

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I wouldn't have thought cell phones would be much of an investment that way. What kind of phone was it? And why would they pay that?

Well, I don't have any kids or heirs, so my will makes arrangements for most of my historical stuff -- my radio materials, research files from my book, and recordings -- to go to the University of Maine library. Most of that is actual vintage-era material, but the most significant modern-day item is a large storage bin containing videotapes of continuous TV coverage of the 9/11 attack, starting just before the fall of the towers and continuing for a full week after, taped off the local NBC affiliate. The network material survives in other archives, of course, but the local inserts might well not.

I've thought of this as well - but don't have any good answers. as LizzieMaine said, I'm sure anything 9/11 related will be important. It will be so interesting to have the post 9/11 kids grow up and are old enough to ask us "what was it like before 9/11?"

As far as tomorrow's vintage goes, I'm sure that anything electronic that actually works will be a novelty. Nothing seems to be built to last anymore so a first generation ipod loaded with the songs of it's day might be of interest in 50 or more years. Though I'm sure those in 2058 will have to go on ebay (or wherever people buy used things )to find some adapter that will connect to the ancient discontinued USB plugs.

Fashion magazines I'm sure will be a hoot. As will our computer advertisements. They'll laugh at out dinosaur-esque DSL connection and guffaw at how much we pay for such little storage space.

2058'ers will look back on the horrid looking emo style and laugh hysterically or make faces like this:
Of course those same emo kids will be retiring and look back on it nostalgically...even remembering in 2020's when the emo look was back in style.

CD's will I think be a collectible relic. People will talk about CDs then like Vinylphiles talk about their precious hiss and pops now.

Clocks are always a crowd pleaser.

I'd say the modern designs from Ikea will be something that future generations will wax nostalgic over but I fear that by 2058 every piece of Ikea furniture would have splintered and disintegrated. Maybe by then they'll be a surge in making things sturdy again.

The scary thing is that in the future they'll talk about how archaic our medicine is and how we rushed to buy things and eat things that were later learned to give us cancer i.e. the vintage ads of doctors endorsing cigarettes.

The first generation iPhone might be noteworthy somewhere in the future. So will today's toys (how crude will they look in just 20 years!).

You'll have vintage-loving-kids in the future scouring the thrift shops for a single-button Armani suit, some mangled pair of Air Max 95's or some beat up Gucci purse.

It's only a matter of time before the 90's are back in vogue and then...we're next in line.

Daniel

I thought of that just recently, while sorting through mass amounts of 1980s sewing patterns at a yard sale to find a few vintage (OK, OK, late vintage) 60s-70s patterns. It occurred to me that, if I had room, I *should* be taking those patterns and putting them in storage somewhere, to pull out 50 years from now if I need extra cash during my retirement. lol

We have an extra couple of newspaper copies about the 9/11 attacks. I didn't save all the special inserts about the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but a complete and pristine set might be worth something, 50 years down the road, especially if relations with China take a drastic turn one way or the other.

So much of today's commerce and social interaction goes on in the intangible world of computers and the Internet. I have ancient floppy disk backups that are nearly obsolete, simply because not many computers have floppy disk drives. I'd have to find one somewhere and load everything onto latest form of storage. But a lot of people won't update their backups, and 25 years from now, who's going to be able to sort through their digital pictures, half-finished novels, and financial spreadsheets? I predict an uptick in businesses offering such retrieval services.

Clothing, as usual, will be popular, especially well-made items.

It's all speculation.

This has been the trend for the past few years. Buying up things that people think will be valuable someday. The one thing that I have seen that really bothers me is "collectors" going into toy stores and buying up special edition toys and leaving nothing for the people the toys were intended for, the kids.:rage: I talked to a sales person from a major toy store chain and he said they have to actually damage the boxes on purpose so the collectors won't buy up all the toys that are popular with the kids, because collectors want pristine boxes.

http://www.vintage.org/

The link is to the Vintage Computer Festival, be sure to click on the gallery link there, some really cool pictures of vintage computers. So, some of the rarer computers even from the 1980's are already worth loads.

NH

I don't think a lot of the day to day stuff will survive the strains of time (unless protected from the elements).

Most cars fall apart before they are twenty years old, most pens are disposable, college textbooks are designed to fall apart after a year's service, and the list goes on.

Computers are interesting "vintage" items. My mom kept our Christmas decorations in her old Commodore 64 box. Knowing that, like me, she was a pack rat, I asked her whatever happened to it. Apparently it was left by my father in Saudi Arabia with countless other valuable items and family "things." It really ticked me off, as Commodore 64s, apart from being collectible, were marvelous pieces of technology for the time.

I don't know, it's almost if nothing new and novel was produced in the past twenty years, just improvements on old technology.

DerMann said:

I don't think a lot of the day to day stuff will survive the strains of time (unless protected from the elements).

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Planned obsolescence is a sad and pervasive truth these days. I try to collect things that are not only well made, but made to last as long as possible. Having such criteria narrows down my options.

Back when I was in Jr High, I took a look around at the styles that were "in". I knew that there was no way they would be around for more than a week (it was the '80s after all) so I bought a few items and socked them away for later.

The theory was that if we had 50's dress up days at school, some day my kids would have '80s dress up days. And they do. And they wear my electric blue zippered parachute pants with my neon orange socks. I only wish I had picked up a piano skinny tie.

I still call dibs on Dad's Letter Sweater though.

I'm keeping CDs from local bands I dance to. I want to remember my dancing days.

Guns are always items that will appreciate if they're made well.
I have some from 20-30 years ago that have gone up in value and the models have changed significantly from that time.
Our modern hats will be the vintage hats of tomorrow.
Masonic rings (Masons may become extinct in the future) , commemorative items regarding The World Trade Center, the US Bicentennial, etc.