[mbaytas]

Exciting! A few years ago, as an academic design researcher, I pondered the same question and wrote a few research papers.

Like the author, my inspiration for doing this work had come from a vintage watch I received from my dad!

Turns out, there’s a rich literature in design and psychology research on the heirloom status of objects. And more generally, on why and how people imbue things with value.

Here’s a link to the page from my academic projects archive, with citations: https://www.baytas.net/work/computational-heirlooms

We even went as far as to apply for (and receive) a grant for UX design research, exploring how to create for heirloom value in the digital world. I’ve moved on from academia since then, but AFAIK our PhD is working on it at KTH in Stockholm: https://www.baytas.net/work/digital-preciousness