What are the oldest types of antiques?

[moodorf]

I was wondering since I'm still somewhat new to this antique bottles/antiques in general hobby, what're the oldest antique items being sold today? at a price an average working person could afford? Not just bottles but like, anything?

I started this hobby by digging turn of the century bottles, then was able to buy some civil war aged bottles, then I was able to find some pre-civil war aged pottery. It's got me going down this rabbit hole in my mind, thinking: what's older than this pottery? what other items would people have been using in the late 1700's/very early 1800's that we now in 2023 can inspect and reliably date them to that time?


Ideas? thoughts?

 

[CanadianBottles]

Assuming fossils don't count as antiques, I suppose stone age tools would be the oldest items that could reasonably be considered antiques. Not sure how far back the reasonably affordable examples of those go, and actually I'm not sure how accurate dating could be on stone tools which are removed from their original context (if they ever even had one). The oldest affordable and reliably datable items would probably be coins from a couple thousand years ago. Roman coins can definitely be purchased for very little money, along with similarly aged coins from other nearby civilizations.

 

[Cola-Coca]

stone age tools

I agree, can't get no older.
And they are quite popular right now.

 

[willong]

I agree, can't get no older.
And they are quite popular right now.

Yet, the oldest Paleolithic (or Old Stone Age) tools probably hold little appeal for average amateur collectors, I suspect, despite their 3.3 million-year-old age. I say that because those tools, which actually predate Homo sapiens, are quite crude, being simple sharp-edged flakes.

Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans

Stones tools that are 3.3 million years old have been unearthed pre-dating the earliest-known humans in the Homo genus.

www.bbc.com