What's the Holy Grail item in your hobby?
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I like collecting games, nothing crazy like graded games (graded anything is a scam) or like I have to have every game ever made for a specific console, I just like having a big shelf of games.
I really want a like new, in box green Halo edition original Xbox. People want stupid money for them but I just want to have one. I've got a good condition boxed regular black console and a boxed Halo 3 Xbox 360 but I reeeeally want the green OG.
Here's what people are trying to sell a NIB version for
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Well, my hobby is searching for historical religious artifacts, so...
Your Holy Grail is the Holy Grail
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My hobby is (or rather was) collecting Seiko watches.
I stopped buying watches, but my holy Grail would be "The" Pogue. The original 6139-6005 yellow face automatic chronograph worn by Col. William Pogue on the Skylab mission.
Other than the NASA issued Omegas, this was his personal watch that he just took with him into space, as NASA didn't want the Astronauts to take their Speedmasters home and so they couldn't train as much with them.
This also was the first automatic chronograph in space, as no one had tried before if they would work without gravity (surprise, they did, as momentum is still very much a thing in space).
Here is a very nice write up by a very knowledgeable guy:
https://www.plus9time.com/blog/2017/12/24/the-true-seiko-pogue-chronograph-6139-6005
Heard also gshocks were one of the few space rated watches for astronauts
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In amateur radio, making an Earth-Moon-Earth contact. That means bouncing your signal off of the moon, basically using it as a satellite. You generally need a big antenna array to do it. Also you need a very high quality amplifier to receive since the signal you get back from the mood is very weak. You can hear an echo of yourself delayed about 2.6 seconds, since the moon is about 1.3 light seconds away.
That's dope
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An original production Semmerling LM4.
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In amateur radio, making an Earth-Moon-Earth contact. That means bouncing your signal off of the moon, basically using it as a satellite. You generally need a big antenna array to do it. Also you need a very high quality amplifier to receive since the signal you get back from the mood is very weak. You can hear an echo of yourself delayed about 2.6 seconds, since the moon is about 1.3 light seconds away.
EME Moonbounces do look like fun. Here's a guy, I think pinging a friend off the moon.
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Your Holy Grail is the Holy Grail
The Lost Ark of the Covenant actually
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I never knew they had merchandise for Big O.
From my personal collection:
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came to say original arp 2600. or an og tr-808/909
The 2600 is definitely a worthy nomination. The 2500 is even more grail-ish.
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My hobby is (or rather was) collecting Seiko watches.
I stopped buying watches, but my holy Grail would be "The" Pogue. The original 6139-6005 yellow face automatic chronograph worn by Col. William Pogue on the Skylab mission.
Other than the NASA issued Omegas, this was his personal watch that he just took with him into space, as NASA didn't want the Astronauts to take their Speedmasters home and so they couldn't train as much with them.
This also was the first automatic chronograph in space, as no one had tried before if they would work without gravity (surprise, they did, as momentum is still very much a thing in space).
Here is a very nice write up by a very knowledgeable guy:
https://www.plus9time.com/blog/2017/12/24/the-true-seiko-pogue-chronograph-6139-6005
To clarify, would you consider this specific individual watch the holy grail, or one of that make, model and spec?
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A workshop
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I guess an Eleiko barbell:
Pretty much the Rolls Royce of barbells.
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In the typewriter community, the âholy grailâ differs from person to person, but for me it was a 1930s Royal P equipped with a rare typeface called Vogue. Very, very rarely theyâll pop up from people who donât know how significant that is, and thatâs the only way to get one at a reasonable price - because those who do know what it is will ask thousands of dollars for it.
Eventually I found one for a comparatively cheap price (sub 1k), and the only reason someone else didnât snap it up before I saw it was because the guy refused to ship it. Local pickup only. So I took the chance to drive the 10 hours round trip to snag it, and it sits proudly as the crown jewel of my collection:
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Astronomy, something like this https://www.telescopesplus.com/products/meade-16-inch-lx200-acf-f-10-advanced-coma-free-telescope
Initially, I was like "not even a space telescope? The thing is probably pretty cheap"
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Gunpla. That one rare, out-of-print kit that is only available on ebay for like $500. I have 3 grail kits, and fortunately, 2 of them are going to get reissued in the next 6ish months, and there's a fair chance the third one may be reissued in the near future as well.
Another one for me is Godhand SPN-120-L. They are considered to be the best nippers on the market, and this is the left-handed version. Unfortunately, they're only available on Godhand's official site, and they only ship to Japan.
$500 isn't even that bad tbh. Csgo skins get sold for more than that
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Woodworking: An entire log of American Chestnut.
About a century ago, the species was all but wiped out by a blight that came from Japanese chestnut. Some three billion trees died. The blight actually survives in the forest living on but not damaging oak trees, so American chestnuts are struggling to reclaim their historic habitats. The species is critically endangered and efforts to rehabilitate the population are underway, including trying to breed large surviving individuals or to genetically engineer blight resistant trees. Logging is of course completely out of the question.
American Chestnut is an excellent lumber, with many of the properties of white oak in a faster growing tree. It is straight grained, hard and strong, easy to saw and split, rot resistant due to tannins. A fantastic choice for indoor and outdoor furniture, structural timber, even telephone poles. Reclaimed chestnut timber from old buildings is highly prized, and what woodworker wouldn't love access to a few hundred board feet of freshly kiln dried American chestnut...if it was possible to ethically source.
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Woodworking: An entire log of American Chestnut.
About a century ago, the species was all but wiped out by a blight that came from Japanese chestnut. Some three billion trees died. The blight actually survives in the forest living on but not damaging oak trees, so American chestnuts are struggling to reclaim their historic habitats. The species is critically endangered and efforts to rehabilitate the population are underway, including trying to breed large surviving individuals or to genetically engineer blight resistant trees. Logging is of course completely out of the question.
American Chestnut is an excellent lumber, with many of the properties of white oak in a faster growing tree. It is straight grained, hard and strong, easy to saw and split, rot resistant due to tannins. A fantastic choice for indoor and outdoor furniture, structural timber, even telephone poles. Reclaimed chestnut timber from old buildings is highly prized, and what woodworker wouldn't love access to a few hundred board feet of freshly kiln dried American chestnut...if it was possible to ethically source.
Why can't they just be grown here instead of japan?
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In the typewriter community, the âholy grailâ differs from person to person, but for me it was a 1930s Royal P equipped with a rare typeface called Vogue. Very, very rarely theyâll pop up from people who donât know how significant that is, and thatâs the only way to get one at a reasonable price - because those who do know what it is will ask thousands of dollars for it.
Eventually I found one for a comparatively cheap price (sub 1k), and the only reason someone else didnât snap it up before I saw it was because the guy refused to ship it. Local pickup only. So I took the chance to drive the 10 hours round trip to snag it, and it sits proudly as the crown jewel of my collection:
Hells to the yeah
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It used to be something like a 1959 Les Paul
or the Special Edition Lemmy Tribute Ric,
but honestly these days I just like hanging out with my people and enjoying a refreshing beverage. Spending on some thing got less important.
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Why can't they just be grown here instead of japan?
Because the disease has become endemic to American forests.
The American Chestnut was the dominant tree in the ecosystem of the forests of Eastern North America. Per Wikipedia, "it was said that a squirrel could walk from New England to Georgia solely on the branches of American chestnuts." In the late 19th century, Japanese chestnut trees were imported, and they brought with them Asian Bark Fungus. American Chestnuts are quite susceptible to this fungus, and it largely wiped out the population.
The fungus infects the above ground portion of the tree, killing it. New shoots will emerge from the stump as the below ground portion of the tree isn't affected by the fungus, but the new growth doesn't get very far before the fungus kills it off again. We have no hope of eliminating the fungus from the forests.
So we've got these zombie tree stumps that will grow enough of a plant to keep the fungus alive and running (it also survives on other species of tree), but not enough to grow large and reproduce. There are some remaining adult trees here and there but the species is considered functionally extinct in the wild as it really isn't able to thrive because this fungus is among us. So unless we can hybridize or otherwise breed fungus resistant chestnut trees, we ain't got no American Chestnuts.
American chestnuts are also susceptible to ink disease and the Chinese Gall Wasp.
A lot of problems were caused by importing plants to North America; tumbleweeds aren't indigenous, they're Russian, and a massive fucking problem.
