How old does something have to be, before it’s recognized as an antique?
In this internet era of quick and dirty information, I’m harbouring a Microfiche Reader. When was the last time you had to use one of those to fix yer motorcycle? Better yet, I also have a microfiche reader with an internal photocopier. So you pre-internet Luddites could generate yer own hard copy of yer parts and repair info. I think there might be an issue with finding ink and paper to make it work, but it’d be an adventure in antique tech, as far as I’m concerned. (Not that I’m about to embark on that particular adventure.)
I can’t bring myself to call my ’54 Norton Model 7 an antique. It’s kinda timeless. Not quite as timeless as the ’51 Vincent I used to own. If anyone dared call that one an antique, they’d have a bunch of the Vincent H.R.D. Owners Club guys on their butts. An antique to the VOC has bicycle pedals, hand ignition advance, and tyres of the size that fit current mountain bikes.
What about an old claw-foot bathtub? Ours has been put out to pasture, in a manner of speaking. Hard to see now, since it’s filled with spruce cones and pine needles, but I’m pretty sure it had undergone a new enamelling. It didn’t look original. It came with the house and I don’t know where the previous owner got it. Could be from somebody’s granny.
And then there’s the TV cabinet that the parents had for their 19-inch set. I don’t know if that was a measurement of screen diagonally, or the dimension front to back. Makes a damn nice rum cabinet, but is it an antique?
Vilas Maple Furniture! OMG, every government-owned or subsidized house in Whitehorse, and probably across the entire North, had Vilas’s maple furniture. A whole bunch of it has survived. We have three pieces and our friends in Atlin have some too. It’s an artifact from the era when this was largely a government town. Would you call that an antique?
I’ve been playing around with hydraulic rams for a few years now, and talk about antique tech … these have to be the very best examples. Eighteenth century for sure. Making water run uphill with only the force of the flowing water itself. (And a really old valve contraption.)
Ya gotta love old stuff—antique or not.
I’m kinda old. Parse that however you want to.
