Most items that people own tend to have been mass produced. Whether it’s a comfy couch, a branded t-shirt, or even a bottle of wine. But, there always seems to be a special place for those items that are truly one-of-a-kind. Redditor u/Prestigious_Pass9599 asked: “What is something you have, that you’re pretty sure no one else has?” and the responses are priceless.
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A Book From The USS Indianapolis
- Photo:
- u/alicat9713
From Redditor u/alicat9713:
My grandfather was on the USS Indianapolis during WWII and was transferred off of it before they delivered the bombs and it sank … he happened to take a book from the ship’s library and never returned it. I inherited all of his books and happened to stumble across it while going through them… it’s stamped with the ship’s library stamp. So unless any other sailor took a book from the library of the USS Indianapolis before it sank and then held onto it all these years, this may be the only one in the world.
What do you think?Interesting? - Photo:
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Their Grandfather’s Diary From WWII
From Redditor u/South5:
My grandfather’s diary when he was lost at sea during WW2. Records deaths and a few comments about raging hunger. 6 weeks adrift. He was serving in the merchant navy on a ship in the south Atlantic, they got torpedoed by a u-boat and came under fire, his cousin took a shell to the chest, killing him, they scrambled to the lifeboats and got into one.
The ship went down. After all the commotion the u-boat resurfaced and the German captain spoke to them, the merchants were unarmed. He explained that they were at war and attempted to give the sailors bread and potatoes, fearful that they were poisoned the food was thrown overboard. They were adrift miles from land, unable to see the shore or any landmarks to navigate to. Over the coming weeks, they collected rainwater and tried to fish as best they could but they were starving.
The entries in the diary are brief but concise, people were dying of their injuries and dehydration. After roughly six weeks they were spotted by another merchant ship and rescued. He had 2 children and 5 grandchildren and passed away in 1995. The diary is 77 years old, and I refuse to let it out of my sight.
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Their Great-Great Grandparents’ Passports Signed By Queen Victoria
From a Redditor:
I have my my great-great grandparents’ passports. They’re hand written on a single piece of paper and signed by Queen Victoria.
From Redditor u/jrmiv4:
They must have been big shots!
From Redditor u/joehonestjoe:
I would expect that in the days of great-great grandparents, passports were quite new, and not many people needed them.
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A Tiny School Book From The 1800s
From Redditor u/BankerBabe420:
I have a tiny school book from the 1800s and the covers are filled with the writings of a little girl. I’m trying to track down her descendants to give them this book, because I don’t like having something so valuable and irreplaceable in my possession, but there is no other little book like it. It is a history book and many of the entries would now be considered offensive, also this little girl, and likely her children and grandchildren, are long gone.
From Redditor u/Swinella:
My maternal grandmother ended up with an old elementary school book from the late 1800s–I think she got it at a yard sale. I thought it was really cool because the little kid’s last name was one I’d heard mentioned as distant family on my paternal side. She gave it to me. After a bit of research, I later found out that it was a a long-deceased distant paternal cousin. Dad’s family was from 100 miles away. I still think it’s cool that it ended up with me.
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An Apollo 11 Patch And Test Helmet
From Redditor u/Mackheath1:
I’m sure other people have it, but not many people have both. I inherited a real Apollo 11 patch (that went to the moon) from my grandfather who worked on the mission and my aunt gave me a Mercury Astronaut test helmet worn by Alan Shepard.
From Redditor u/Spagetttomato:
My mother has a similar patch! She told me they just sent a few boxes full of them on the lander just so they could say they’ve been to the moon, but still very cool! She worked for Lockheed on various missions during the shuttle era, coolest of which was her time working on the Hubble telescope.
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A Violin Made By Giovanni Paolo Maggini In 1614
From Redditor u/chaun2:
An intact violin made by Paolo Giovanni Magini. It is one of 3 that are left. Made in Brefcha, IT, 1614. Unfortunately, the original bow is in a hermetically sealed glass tube after we discovered it was infected with bow mites.
From Redditor u/MonsieurCatsby:
Just a heads up, there’s more than 3 of them out there. They’re still far from common mind and are gorgeous examples of early making in a style that was mostly wiped out about 15 years after the one you have was made. If it’s complete (bar the neck, blocks etc which will all have been replaced) it’s a lovely thing to have. They’ve often not recieved the same tender love and care as the other famous makers but as historical pieces they’re fascinating.
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The Master Recording Of ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’
From Redditor u/hotarume:
The master recording of the Phantom of the Opera (or, part of it, anyway). My dad was the recording engineer, so he had the tape from when they made an album of the show with the original cast.
From Redditor u/MissBonny:
Okay this is the one that makes me jealous. I love Michael Crawford!
From Redditor u/GoneKrogering:
Wow. That is truly an incredible piece of modern history.
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A Key That Unlocked The B6 Level In The World Trade Center
From Redditor u/JimTheJerseyGuy:
A key to unlock the B6 level on an elevator in the World Trade Center along with a matching Port Authority issued ID card. It was the lowest basement level in the Trade Center complex. Below that, bedrock. On the sides, concrete walls going 70′ up to the surface to keep groundwater infiltrating from the Hudson River at bay. The PATH tubes ran through it. The company that I worked for had gear down there that I needed to maintain on occasion.
From Redditor u/LifeInAction:
I used to work on the construction team for the world trade center, I don’t have the key now that projects finished, but back then briefly had access, and have seen the bottom below the original twin towers, with all the old steel lol, we might’ve worked together, what a small world.
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A Retirement Watch From 1923
From Redditor u/LensPro:
My great great Grandfather’s 1923 retirement watch. A Howard, never used still in the original case.
From Redditor u/RunesAndWoodwork:
Hits close to home. My grandfather passed last year. We were polar opposites. But the one thing we connected on was old pocket watches. I collected old ones, he had his and his families. He had given me his watch chain when I was 8 and I didn’t know what it even was until I was into my 30s. My daily carry (eBay that I had restored) is a sibling to his daily carry (he bought when he graduated medical school).
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A Book Of Poems From Their Great-Great Aunt
From Redditor u/SquirrelTale:
That reminds me, I have a book of poems from my great great aunt who wrote personal poems through her life from the late 1800s when she went to the ‘big city’ to learn to be a seamstress and well into the 1900s. It really captures an essence of what life was like for her back then. Some poems are hilarious, some observational, and one very, very sad one of her little sister who died at age 4 in the late 1800s- early 1900s. Her poems kinda followed her life, and she didn’t write about getting married til later, but I’ll try and pinpoint when this excerpt would’ve been later. (Formatted as it was written).
‘A busy world is this’
A busy world is this A world of care and sorrow
A hundred jobs to do to day A hundred more tomorrow
We work we toil we slave along for fashion rules you know
And things must-be fix up Just-right-and must-be made just so
Spring comes with fashion new
And summer brings but more
Then fall and winter never fail
To bring along their store
And these must be looked into
And be into-action brought
For fashion rules and runs the day
In fashion stands our thought’Interesting?
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A ‘Nirvana’ Ticket From Right Before Kurt Cobain’s Death
From Redditor u/Scallywagstv2:
Mint condition Nirvana ticket for a concert they never played due to Kurt Cobain’s death. (April 94, Manchester G-Mex). The ticket says March ’94, but this was postponed. It was rescheduled for April, then he died. Me and my mate booked the coaches and hotel twice, and had to cancel twice.
From Redditor u/twiddledootwiddledee:
I had one of those too (concert was supposed to be in Stockholm in April, 1994) but took the refund cash since I was 14 with zero funds. Hurts a bit today.
From Redditor u/Sevnfold:
Oh, similar. My aunt has a ticket stub for the Elvis concert just after he died.
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A First Generation iPod Prototype
From Redditor u/8Bit_Innovations:
A 1st gen iPod prototype from 2001 with hand-soldered components.
From Redditor u/Ptricky17:
That’s amazing. I would love to see a picture of the PCB. I suspect whoever assembled it had surgeons hands, and I’d love to see the quality of the solder joints.
From Redditor u/GitEmSteveDave:
It’s not the one he threw into the fish tank and got mad when bubbles appeared, is it?
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World’s Longest Spinning Fidget Spinner
From Redditor u/DesireOfTheEndless:
World’s longest spinning fidget spinner. My father works for a ball bearing company. They developed the world’s longest-time spinning fidget spinner for the Guinness Book of World Records as a PR piece. He got to keep the spinner after the trials and it now sits at my desk at home.
From Redditor u/allowishus2:
That’s pretty neat, I want one. It looks like they did sell them, but all the links are dead now.
From Redditor u/sully9088:
Woah! You have that thing sitting on your desk? It took 50 people 6 months to make it? And it’s on your DESK??
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A Button From A Pulp Factory That The King Of Sweden Pushed
From Redditor u/linjaz:
My dad saved the very button that the King of Sweden pushed to engage a new production line in the factory my dad worked in. The factory was shut down a few years later and dad took the opportunity to bring the button with him on his last days of work. It was a pulp factory. I think the button was just symbolic. The king would press it and then probably some engineers started up the machines simultaneously. Just like cutting a ribbon.
From Redditor u/dashingThroughSnow12:
A certain prince travels with his own toilet seat for this video reason; anything a royal touches may become a collectible.
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A Piece Of Turbine From A Crashed Airbus A300
From Redditor u/Badfish1060:
A piece of a turbine from a crashed Airbus A300. I was in charge of the environmental cleanup following the crash. We removed some 6,000 yards of contaminated soil. When we were loading one of the trucks, the NTSB guy spotted it in the dirt and said something to the effect of, “that’s a really valuable piece of metal, I wouldn’t let it go to the landfill.” So, I grabbed it and threw it in my truck. It’s fairly large. I had planned to do something cool with it, but it turns out it’s too hard of a metal alloy for anyone to work with without specialized tools. So now it sits in my garage. The crash was in 2013.
From Redditor u/crestedgecko12:
For anyone wondering, this would have been UPS airlines flight 1354.
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Tickets To MLB Playoff Games That Never Happened
From Redditor u/PutneySwope022:
I have tickets to some MLB playoff games that never happened. My Grandmother worked for Ticket-Tron back when that was a thing. She left behind a bunch of memorabilia. Some used tickets to events and such. Ticket-Tron handled all the Mets affairs back then, too. So, we would always get tickets to games. In all of the things left behind, are two different bundles of three tickets each for The Mets 1985 playoff games. Only, the Mets didn’t make the Playoffs in 1985. I am unsure if it was a printing error for the 86 baseball year, or they were printed off in expectation of them making the playoffs…but either way, I have them.
From Redditor u/Ufookinwatm8:
I used to be a season ticket holder for the Rangers. I have two years of world series tickets that never happened! The season ticket holders get first dibs at tickets and they send them out to you around the time of the championship series.
