gift heirloom mom

November 19, 2013 11:29 AM

Can Mefi help me find a gift that would become an heirloom later on? Details inside...

I want to buy my mom a gift. No reason, no occasion. I have a sister and a niece too. I am looking for a gift that my mom would enjoy today and something that will be passed on to my sister, then my niece. I come from a patriarchal culture and I would like this heirloom to stay within the female bloodline. I'm looking for something suitably grand. I've been saving up for this for a while now and I can afford about $2000.

posted by anonymous to Shopping (20 answers total)

How about a piece of jewelry? A necklace or bracelet in a classic timeless style and of good quality would be a great choice.
posted by Requiax at 11:33 AM on November 19, 2013

Commission a custom quilt or other useful artifact from an artisan. You could request some fabric or other items owned by your mother or grandmother be incorporated or custom embroidery could have the names of each family member it is passed to.
posted by j03 at 11:35 AM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, jewelry is the classic choice for something like this -- finding what will become "the family pearls" is pretty classic/timeless.
posted by craven_morhead at 11:37 AM on November 19, 2013

How about a really classic piece of jewelry? If you are in the U.S., I would suggest something like a strand of pearls or a very simple diamond pendant (your culture might suggest something else). For something intended to become an heirloom, you want to avoid anything trendy and buy the highest quality you can afford. Imagine the kind of jewelry someone your mother's age might have inherited from her grandmother.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:38 AM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cedar chest.

Blanket chest.

Cedar trunk.

Blanket trunk.
posted by oceanjesse at 11:38 AM on November 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

I like the jewelry idea. Something small would be good so that future generations aren't trying to figure out how to haul around the family heirloom grandfather clock or something.

My family has something like this. My great grandmother had an ancient Greek coin that she passed to her eldest daughter. I have no idea how a farmer's wife from the Willamette Valley of 1870's Oregon would get ahold of a proof-quality ancient Greek gold coin, so it could go even farther back than that in the family. It got passed to my grandmother's only daughter (my mother). Since my mom only had one daughter and she is crazy (yes, completely over the top paranoid schizophrenic), it was passed to me with the understanding that someday it will be given to my mom's oldest grand-daughter (my oldest daughter). Since my dad was a coin collector, he had it encapsulated so that it is in really good condition and will stay that way. I will tell my daughter to pass it on to her oldest daughter or niece someday.
posted by BearClaw6 at 11:45 AM on November 19, 2013

My parents got a cedar chest, a hall table, and some art from my grandparents. They might have gotten jewelry too, but I don't think they did. Personally I'd go with something more functional like a quilt or furniture for this gift, because fancy jewelry is something you hide away in a box most of the time, and it's easily lost.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:46 AM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have a gold charm bracelet. The bracelet was my mother's aunt Ruth's when she was alive and it became earmarked for me before I was born. (hence my name.) I now have it and there are charms from aunt Ruth, My grandmother, my mother and I've added my own. My sister got my grandmother's bracelet and her collection of charms. My mom has the bracelet that was started for her when she was young and a freaking metric BUTT-load of charms.

It was a joke in my family that you knew my mom was coming from the jingling of the charms (she wore all three bracelets for a time.) So when I hear the gentle jingle of a charm bracelet, I immediately start hiding my stash. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

I NEVER, but NEVER wear the damn thing. Neither does my sister. My mom has tons of jewelry and she only trots her charm bracelet out when she wants to lord it over my aunt.

Can I tell you about the "heirloom" jewlery I've lost in my lifetime? The topaz and diamond ring my grandmother found in a gutter, my grandmother's signet ring, an ugly-assed amythest ring my grandmother and her sister each bought in Acapulco and a gold coin set in a necklace. All gone.

You know what? I don't miss those things at all, I'm guilty as HELL for losing them, but I wore them and enjoyed them and for whatever reason, they fell off my fingers and neck and have long been found by someone. I hope they enjoy them!

As it stands, my mother has invited my sister and I to tiptoe through her jewelry box to divvy up what we want when she's gone. Except for the set with the orange stones she bought in Korea when we were there together on a shopping trip, that's for me! (yay.)

I wear my wedding ring and a watch and that's about it. As it stands I have MORE heirloom jewelry than I want, and I get to look forward to more in the coming years. Even Husbunny knows better than to buy me jewelry for holidays or my birthday. Just not my thing.

When I was 20 my parents bought me a Jens Quistgaard Lovig Desk. Although I did attempt to sell it, I managed to find a place for it in our new apartment and I've always liked it. Sure, it's been assembled and disassembled a few dozen times, and moved about 15,000 miles in the past 30 years, but I still like it. It's not he most ergonomic thing, having been designed prior to computers, but it's beautiful.

Jewlery is fashion and some people will never warm up to it. Furniture is big and breakable and some people may eventually think it's ugly. Ditto artwork.

I firmly believe that heirlooms are just a high-level of hoarding. A reason to hang on to things that you may not like, or don't have room for.

With $2,000 you can give your mother a fantastic trip. An experience she'll remember her entire life. Perhaps she can journal about her experiences and future generations can read about her adventures. I'd much rather start a new family tradition, one of sending each other on fantastic adventures and writing about them.

But that's me, I'm notoriously weird.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:25 PM on November 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

You're really nice to be doing this. This might kind of an eccentric suggestion, but here goes:

I learned only recently that it's customary to pass monogrammed linens down to sons; the thinking on this is that the paternal initial will no longer apply to the (presumably married) daughter (who, it's assumed, has taken her husband's name).

Now this struck me as wrong for too many reasons to mention, and also a pity given that substantial but well-worn linen sheets are just so totally great, one of the nicest everyday luxuries.

So I'm suggesting a set of wonderful linen sheets and pillowcases with some sort of embroidery (doesn't even have to be initials, though it could be) whose meaning will be shareable into the future by mom, sister, and niece.

There are linen sheet sets in the price range you mentioned (an example here) but you wouldn't have to pay nearly so much to find something beautiful and durable. (Be sure it's linen though.) Then you could find someone to add custom embroidery to it (custom monogrammers/embroiderers are sometimes able to work from digital images that you supply).

Good luck.
posted by sophieblue at 12:33 PM on November 19, 2013

In my family we pass down fine china, sterling silver, and art. Jewellery not so much, but I would point out that a Cartier tank watch is timeless, extremely elegant but everyday wearable, has not spent a single second being out of style in 100 years, and makes a fantastic heirloom. I think the basic tank is just about in your (vary generous!) budget.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

Let me speak in favor of jewelry, which I love passionately.

First, jewelry retains value and is portable. This can be lifesaving. One of my dear friends was able to flee her extremely abusive husband, in the patriarchal country where he was well connected, by smuggling out her jewelry. It literally bought her and her daughter's freedom.

Secondly, jewelry is classic. Tastes in other things come and go, but most of us are still gawking at the jewelry worn by Minoans and Egyptians and Romans.

Third, jewelry is often beautiful, a thing which it is a pleasure to handle and look at.

Because ring sizes are so variable, I'd suggest a really classic pendant or bracelet or watch. One advantage to pendants and watches is that you can have the back engraved too.
posted by bearwife at 12:57 PM on November 19, 2013

I would've never thought linens make heirlooms. Jewelry seems like the most popular suggestion (my mom and niece definitely love their shiny things) but I don't understand what makes jewelry personal. Like I mentioned, I have been saving up for this for a long time and I do want to make it special.

I guess the engraving watches and bracelets makes the most sense so far.
posted by savitarka at 1:50 PM on November 19, 2013

Gah! I forgot I made the question anonymous (my sister sometimes visits MeFi and I wanted to keep it a secret) but it's fine.. Thanks for the suggestions!
posted by savitarka at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

A custom high quality hall table of a timeless style, perhaps like this, of which you've exhaustively documented its commencement and manufacture, that information upon which you arrange to appropriately attach somewhere out of site under the table for perpetuity and to maintain provenance for future generations of Family Savitarka.
posted by lstanley at 2:24 PM on November 19, 2013

I Nth the watch. It's jewelry and it's beautiful and it's practical and if it's a pretty casual style your mother can wear it all the time and it's large enough that she's not necessarily going to lose it (as far as jewelry goes, don't buy earrings, because if/when you lose one, you have no use for the other one), and a watch is something that everyone can use and will appreciate as it is handed down.

The Cartier tank watches are generally more costly than $2000, though. But you can find plenty of watches, with some research, that are within your budget. If you do this, make sure you buy a watch that does retain its value.
posted by DMelanogaster at 2:33 PM on November 19, 2013

Art can also be good. As for larger items, my extended family has lots of family china and furniture gathering dust somewhere. I vote for something smaller than a bread box.
posted by craven_morhead at 2:36 PM on November 19, 2013

In my family we pass down silver serving spoons. Girls in the family are given a silver serving spoon (usually when they are born) engraved with their 3 initials. These then get passed down in the female line, mother to daughter preferably, but down the female line. I currently have serving spoons going back to the 1800's, including mine, my mother's, grandmother, etc.. We actually use them to serve food on special occasions also, and it serves as a way to remember those who are no longer with us. There is no attempt to try to match the silver patterns. (My niece will be getting mine and the ones I inherited when the time is right, or my double first cousin's daughter will if my niece is not interested.)
posted by gudrun at 5:08 PM on November 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

I have a fairly simple gold necklace that belonged to a great-great-aunt, then her daughter, then my mother, and now me. Each of us wore the necklace at our weddings and the dates and people are written in increasingly less impeccable copperplate inside the original box. I love it and it is simple enough to still wear it occasionally for day-to-day.

I vote for something small and portable that doesn't require a particular lifestyle or size. I think a beautiful watch or a necklace or bracelet would be great--diamond solitaire pendants are unlikely to be too trendy, or a simple but high-quality gold locket. Since this is a present for your mother, though, her taste should really trump the "timeless" factor.

Is it at all possible for you to consult your mother on this or does it need to be a surprise?
posted by The Elusive Architeuthis at 5:59 PM on November 19, 2013

A classic women's watch. They will last for a very long time, and if you get a design that has been around at least 40-50 years, it will survive longer. Plus, in an emergency it can be pawned relatively easily. Rings get resized and redone too easily by heirs - my grandmother's ring is essentially gone now.

A small artwork with emotional significance (something by an artist who's a woman with your family's cultural background for example) would be a really nice gift too. Small, like less than 8"x8" so that someone who inherits it and hates it can put it on a high bookshelf to be discovered by another generation. If you can get a historical artefact with emotional significance, that's even better.
posted by viggorlijah at 11:40 PM on November 19, 2013

A vase - can be displayed on its own or used for flower arrangements. Very feminine. Either classic and universal like crystal, or something artisanal in the traditional style of your culture, whatever you think the ladies your family would prefer. Choose something of moderate size - most versatile for finding it a place/use in the home, and getting good quality for the price while still standing out in a room (size-wise for visual impact).
posted by lizbunny at 12:04 PM on November 20, 2013