Occasionally, I watch the television show “The Antiques Roadshow”. It’s a British creation where average citizens bring their antiques to a group of appraisers, who review the fine details and history of the piece. Very often, the owners are surprised when they learn the intricacies of their item, and even more surprised to learn the value.

Often, the antiques reviewed are useful household items of generations past. Furniture is very often reviewed, but also clothing, pottery, toys, and decorations. As the appraisers point out, these antiques are often very skillfully created, and thus, were in short supply and commanded a high price in their day. And because of this skill, the pieces remain intact to this day.

So I wonder, will future generations make “antiques” of any mid to late 20th century items? Most products since the creation of the assembly line (1913) seem to defy the prototype of antiques: cheaply made, in mass quantities, in hopes of commanding a cheap price, and disposable so repurchasing is necessary *. So which items from our time will be chosen as prized antiques in the future?

Well, what better skillfully created, short supply, originally highly priced, household item than our own empegs! When “electronics collectors” look back through the late 20th century for interesting and innovative items, I think they’ll come across empeg among the ranks of Rio PMP300, Mambo X, and Personal Jukebox. And will they find rare empeg items and value them higher?

My line of thinking kind of ends there (except for the question, “What other current, potentially overlooked house hold items will be discovered as antiques in the next 50 to 100 years?”), but I’m interested in where else the topic may lead.

* This planned obsolescence, however, causes pristine specimens of modern items to be in short supply. Cars are a great example, with sports, political, and product memorabilia coming in an unrelated second.

I have to confess to a rather alarming feeling about the possibility that my kids might regard my empeg as a family heirloom, and that in 2099 there will be a running version of "Antiques Roadshow" (or even a BBC - look what happened to PanAm), and even worse, that they would show it as an antique!

Shudder

It is threads like this that make me regret selling my Mk1 empeg

200UKP? Geez, I got my mkI for 150USD. I guess I was really lucky.

Eh?!!! I paid GBP900+ for mine!

Mind you though, it still works - unlike this chap!

(note the careful trophy labelling)