The oldest I have are stuffed animals, but they’re packed away. This was something my mom brought home and gave to me one day in my early teens and has been on display everywhere I’ve lived since.
@JustNik Oh, and how could I forget Pooh! I have the original Winnie The Pooh Book that I got hooked on as a kid. Doubt it is a first edition, but close. Makes no difference. It is so worn, binding falling apart with loose pages, some spots mended with yellowing scotch tape., it would have no value to collectors. I have a couple of book shelves full of Pooh books in various forms of editions, books about Pooh, books by the real life Christopher Robin. But there is nothing like caressing that original copy, and feeling it come alive again in my hands and head. My youngest son "borrowed" it once and stuck it on his bookshelf. No way. Anything else, but that one sticks with me.
Two books; one given to me by our form-teacher in Infant's School as a leaving present when Dads' work move forced us and very many other familes to up sticks and move to a new area some 100 miles away. I was six at the time.
They are Winnie The Pooh, and a remarkably wide-ranging anthology called The Junior Week-end Book.
The latter is remarkable too for the intellectual, academic, interest and practical abilities, its writers evidently assumed as matter-of-fact for its intended readership, I think any and all children aged probably about 8 to early-teens.
A chapter of songs includes the properly-notated music. That of poems give ones written with adult readers in mind; similarly with a chapter of passages extracted from novels.
The Puzzles are of a level used in IQ Tests and as brain-teasers for grown-ups.
Want to build a simple wooden boat? No, "Ask your Dad to cut the wood to these lengths" - you do it. Presumably Dads of the era trusted their offspring with their expensive saws, though home carpentry tools were unlikely to have been powered ones in the mid-1950s when the book was published.. Intriguingly the instructions stop short of sealing the hull before you go off playing Swallows And Amazons on the nearest waterway, but I think the book does have a section on swimming.
Or toffee? The recipe evidently assumes any ten-year-old can stir simmering pans of molten sugar and butter without mishap... And so on. Sugar was no longer rationed, the book reminds us. I do admit our Mam helped me with the toffee-making... Perhaps I'll try it again one day now I am of Grandad's age so perhaps can be trusted to boil sugar all on my own.
And to saw wood to marked lines, though I won't attempt the boat..
Ration books and a few other mementoes from the homefront in WWII. Had some toys; may still have some stashed in the storage boxes in the closet and garage. But I lost my Tom Mix whistling arrowhead with magnifying and smallifying lens that glowed in the dark. It was a good luck charm for our darts team and, alas, I left it behind in a pub after an away match. And I gave my earth haulter to my grandson when he was a kid. Don't know if my son still has it stashed away or not. Grandson now drives my Prius that I passed on to him as well.
a stuffed yellow gorilla names monkey my dad gave me when i was small. he held onto it when he moved states and it burned down with his house. using reddit, it tracked a new one down to give to him bc i knew it was sentimental. he happened to track one down to give to me because it was sentimental. both arrived at my house the same day and now we both have one lol
also, i believe my mom said mt aunt gave this bear to me the day i was born
My mother gave this to me when I was 11. I remember she took me out to lunch and told me how proud she had always been of me. The ring is one of my most prized possessions because it came from her. 🥹
I got a bunch of stuff from my childhood. I got my stuff bear from when I was born. I still have beanie babies and books and blankets my grandmother gave me. I still have the guns my grandfather gave me. I still have original Nintendo and super Nintendo games I played back then.
