What's your lost "treasure?"

[estrangedtwat]

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned during my years living in Japan is to live minimally. There's simply not as much space for people here, especially in and near Tokyo, so we're all crammed into these tiny apartments. It's the complete opposite of what I grew up with in America...the 4 bedroom homes with 2 and a half baths, 2 car garage with SUVs...finished basement....full front and back yards. I see now that all of that shit is so extraneous and ultimately unnecessary.

That's not to say I don't have my treasured possessions. My room is a mini-shrine to my dorky obsessions: AKIRA, Transformers, Frank Miller comics, Star Wars...and of course GNR memorabilia.. I love this shit. if my apartment was on fire and I could only save one or a few items....I'd probably end up burning down with it cause I love it all so much. Which is counter-intuitive to the point I was trying to make I guess, which is that as much as I love this stuff....it's just STUFF. It would cost an arm and a leg, but I could replace it if I had to, and none of it is worth actually harming myself over, you know?

But there's one thing that I couldn't replace. It nags me. It HAUNTS me. I wish more than anything I could find a replacement, but even in this day and age of ebay and amazon, some things are irreplacable.

In the summer of 2005 (actually 9 years ago today) I went to a Japanese festival with my then-girlfriend. She was Japanese and she wore a yukata, which is like a light summer kimono. She looked HOT. We went to this festval and ate food from the stalls and danced the traditional Obon dance and it was one of the most lovely days I've ever had. We were in the train station on the way home and I saw a full size poster advertising the festival. Well, since it was over, I figured they didn't need to advertise. So I pulled it off the wall and took it home with me and hung it in my apartment.

I loved it. The artwork was exotic and dreamlike...vaguely erotic and ethereal and other-worldly. The caption on the top read in Japanese "OH! International bazaar...A midsummer night's dream"

About a year later, I moved, and I stored some stuff with my gf. Well we broke up. And I never got the poster back. Most likely it ended up in the trash not long after she erased my contact info from her phone.

It's just a poster. It's stupid. I know that. But I miss it. I miss how it reminded me of that perfect summer day. My own personal mid-summer night's dream. And it just conjures up all these feelings and memories and it's one of those things I can barely even articulate in words...it's just pure feeling. I regret a shitload of things about that break up and losing that poster is one of them. I wish I had in a frame in my bedroom.....but it's gone forever and I can never find another one...I've looked.

I feel dumb, lamenting the loss of something as insignificant as a poster from 9 years ago. Hell, most people over the age of 20 have no need for posters of any kind in their lives. But I can't deny that I'd spend a lot of money if there were some way to get it back.

Can anyone relate? Anyone have a lost treasure, whether it was monetarily valuable or simply sentimental? I'd like to believe I'm not the only one.

[Gracii Guns]

I've downsized massively over the last month and have had to get rid of the majority of my magazine collection. I'm a magazine designer, so this is my profession and hobby combined. Having less stuff is better though.

[DieselDaisy]

I used to have some Third Reich stamps which, for the life of me, I cannot find.

[Apollo]

My Chief Wahoo McDaniels autographed poster.

But my biggest would be a purchase I didn't make.

While in high school, friends and I were avid sports card collectors. In those days you could buy 100-card lots of players. The Michael Jordan rookie card had just came out and you could buy a lot of 100 of them for $100. This is when he'd broken his ankle and missed part of his rookie year, so NOBODY had an idea that he'd end up being the best player of all time.

I actually had a check written out by my parents and it stuffed in the envelope to purchase the cards. But $100 for a high school student was a LOT of money and in the end, I decided to not buy the cards and saved the money for a trip to Texas that summer.

Those cards go for anywhere from 500 to 4000 apiece today.

If I would have ordered them I'd be sitting on anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000.

[DieselDaisy]

If we are discussing things we regret buying, my local record store had Live Like A Suicide for £60. I regret passing on that one.

[WFA]

A letter written to me by Charles Manson

[The Real McCoy]

I gave most of my old concert t-shirts (which to be fair, didn't fit me anymore regardless) to an ex-girlfriend. There's only one that I'd really want back, and that would be the shirt from my first concert ever - Aerosmith, Scranton, PA, 1998. I was 13.

Edited August 22, 2014 by The Real McCoy

[GUNNER PT]

I don't give a fuck about material stuff ...

[Bumblefeet]

Probably not buying bitcoins years ago.