#1 Dime

Scrooge and his First Dime.

"That's not just a dollar. It's Mr. Krabs' first dollar! His most prized possession!"

— SpongeBob, SpongeBob SquarePants, "Wet Painters"

The Number One Dime is an item that is in and of itself of little to no interest or value, but to its owner: it is ridiculously over-important in a purely sentimental way. It might be the token sealing a Childhood Marriage Promise, a Security Blanket, a Memento MacGuffin (particularly an Orphan's Plot Trinket or Fatal Family Photo), a Friendship Trinket, or a Companion Cube, but the overlap with MacGuffins at large is fairly minimal.

Hats are frequent Number One Dimes. Expect The Chew Toy or the Butt-Monkey's precious and rare Gobi Desert Cricket to be frequently threatened. If the character in question is a child (or a child at heart), the Number One Dime will probably be a toy.

In any case, should the item be damaged or lost, it is likely to trigger a Heroic BSoD or a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, which sometimes leads to an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking moment. If dropped, they will do an Indy Hat Roll to retrieve it. Merely being separated from the item is also likely to make them utterly distraught. However, some characters may at one point entrust the item to someone they know and hold in high regard, leading to a Prized Possession Giveaway.

Compare and contrast with Iconic Item, which has the same meaning but is unique rather than generic; and the Artifact of Attraction, which is of interest to many characters. If the item is food, that's either Trademark Favorite Food or (less specifically) Obsessed with Food. If the character falsely believes the item to be the source of a skill or power, it's a Magic Feather. It may also be a Signature Instrument. May overlap with Sentimental Shabbiness.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• DARLING in the FRANXX:
  • Zero Two, who has spent all her life imprisoned and experimented on, describes a picture book she was given as "her first pretty thing."
  • Ichigo has her hairclip, which to her symbolizes her bond with Hiro, who gave it to her as kids. It gets lost during one episode, but Goro replaces it with an identical clip he'd been holding onto for years — symbolizing a turning point for both of them and their relationship.
• Durarara!!: Ryo Takiguchi, a minor character from the same series, is implied to be this way about his harmonica. This makes the fact that it gets destroyed during his brutal, undeserved beat-down rather heartbreaking.
• In Gate Keepers 21, Ayane Isuzu's bell, which gets some unexplained camera focus every now and then. It doesn't really seem to do anything, and its source is never explained, but it's hinted in the final episode that her father gave it to her.
• In Moriarty the Patriot, William kept an odd playing card, spliced together from the king of hearts and the jack of hearts, which he used to cheat Moran in poker, with him for years after The Final Problem and even through tumbling to his death. When he gives it to Moran, the colonel reacts with an almost religious level of relief.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy's straw hat, given to him by his idol Shanks. His epithet is Straw Hat Luffy for a reason. He is so fond of it that when he gives it to someone for safekeeping, it qualifies as a sign that he has had enough of this season's villain, or in some cases, he plops it on his crewmate Nami's head. However, after the death of his brother Ace, Luffy has a Heroic BSoD so bad he doesn't notice he dropped his hat. A later chapter even reveals this hat is even more significant than it appears: it once belonged to Gold Roger, none other than the Pirate King himself, who passed it on to Shanks, one of his cabin boys at the time. However, Luffy is unaware of the latter part.
  • And Brook with his hair, though his case is more justified than others. His afro is the only part of him that did not decay before he became a skeleton man. Without it, his friend Laboon wouldn't recognize him, and since Brook is now a skeleton, his hair wouldn't grow back in case it was cut, so he's fiercely protective of his afro.
• Ash's first hat in Pokémon: The Series. He won it in a contest (there are only two hundred of them in existence), so it's one of his most valuable possessions. He went ballistic when a wild and mischievous Mankey stole it, making himself look stupid trying to get it back. Mankey then evolved into a Primeape once Team Rocket caused some shenanigans, becoming really aggressive and even harder to corral before Ash finally succeeded in reclaiming his hat and capturing the Primeape.
  
  Even so, Ash kept this hat with him through the rest of Kanto and all of Johto. One would almost think that this finally sunk in when he was heading off to Hoenn; maybe a hat with less sentimental value would be a better choice for someone continually targeted for mecha attacks. Hence, in Hoenn he wears a different hat that his mother gave him. And in Sinnoh he switches to yet another new hat. When this new hat is briefly stolen, Ash's attempts to recover it are less desperate than the time a Mankey stole his original hat, as he simply says it feels weird not to have a hat. ^note Imagine wearing glasses all your life and then getting laser surgery.
• In the 14th episode of Tiger & Bunny, a towel that Karina/Blue Rose gets from Kotetsu/Wild Tiger to replace the one he accidentally ruined serves as one of these. It even triggers a Love Epiphany when her room gets ransacked by a thief and she realizes that it's only the towel she's worried about going missing.

Comic Books

• Batman: For Two-Face, it's a double-headed silver dollar, one side of which has been scratched and defaced. Which side lands face-up determines how he acts. It's had different origins over the years, thanks to various Retcons.
  • Originally, the coin was owned by a mob boss that Harvey Dent finally managed to prosecute, using one of his coins as a key piece of evidence. When Dent refused to be bribed or scared off, the crime lord had one of his goons throw acid in Dent's face, creating Two-Face, who subsequently scarred up one side of the coin to better tie it to himself as a symbol of what he had become.
  • The Long Halloween explains that he got it as a present from his father when he visited him at his insane asylum on Father's Day. He uses it to avoid the stress of making difficult decisions and to absolve himself of the guilt for his actions, which does allows him to make tough calls more quickly, if unpredictably.
  • In many modern versions, the coin originally belonged to Harvey's abusive father. According to one story, his father would flip it: heads, he would beat Harvey; tails, he left him alone. Harvey didn't know that it was double-headed.
  • Another issue has Two-Face using a replica because Batman kept the original after sending him back to Arkham. Batman wanted something to remember Harvey by.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: The Trope Namer is Scrooge McDuck's First Dime. Many authors just make it a lucky talisman, but at least Keno Don Rosa, building on the original work by Carl Barks, makes it clear its value is sentimental. It was originally established that the dime is not inherently lucky but that being so important to and belonging for so long to the richest duck in the world who worked hard and fair for his wealth has given it power, hence the implacable Magica de Spell's obsession with getting it to create a talisman that will make her the most powerful witch. Although other characters in Rosa's version of the Disney Ducks Comic Universe have ascribed it the power of being lucky, Don Rosa Scrooge sets the record straight in The Richest Duck in the World:
  Donald: This must be the famous Lucky Dime — the charm Uncle Scrooge used to get his entire fortune!
  (Beat)
  Scrooge: "Lucky" dime?! What thimble-headed gherkin invented that supreme bit of absolute balderdash?!
  Donald: Oh, everybody says it, unk.
  Scrooge: Well, everybody is a nincompoop! I had that dime for 20 years before I struck it rich!
  • While it was the first coin that Scrooge ever earned, because it was an American coin and Scrooge lived in Scotland at the time, the person that gave it to him was screwing him out of payment. That incident is one of the things that made Scrooge decide to become the richest duck in the world, and he originally kept it to remind himself that there are always people that will try to cheat you. If anything, it started as a symbol of bad luck. However, in "The New Laird of Castle McDuck" it unexpectedly saves his life when he falls into a castle moat wearing a suit of armor and nearly drowns until he's able to use the coin to loosen the bolts. After that experience you can forgive him for never wanting to part with it again.
  • While the First Dime has sentimental value for Scrooge in Don Rosa's run, it actually has a power of which he is not aware. Magica de Spell tries to use it to empower her magic (or give her the Midas' Touch, depending on the writer). It's noted both in Carl Barks and Don Rosa's stories, however, that the first dime is technically not necessary. She just needs a coin touched by the world's richest man (or duck). The First Dime would simply have more power due to having been touched more.
  • Both Don Rosa and others have portrayed Scrooge putting similar sentimental value to a lot of other coins in his possession, or even all of them. Don Rosa makes the whole Money Bin hold not Scrooge's entire fortune but a memorial selection, but since that's still a lot of usable money, the whole of it is not an example of this trope like the individual ordinary coins are.
  • As a Long Runner, Scrooge's stories have had many, many writers. A number of them, particularly in stories not originally written in English, do explicitly count the dime as a Good Luck Charm. At least one story even gives it the power of Anti-Magic.
  • Interestingly enough, one story by Carl Barks, "The Magic Hourglass", gives Scrooge a different magical source of wealth: an hourglass filled with sand from a magic oasis. When the sand loses its magic, Scrooge suddenly starts losing his fortune, and has to refill the hourglass with the magic sand in order to keep his wealth.
  • A number of wealthy individuals also have their own Number One coins... And Magica often try and get their hands on them too, given they're useful for the Midas Touch charm:
    • Scrooge's Evil Counterpart, Flintheart Glomgold, has his Number One Rand in answer to Scrooge's Number One Dime, which is slightly weird since South-Africa hasn't been using rands for long enough that Flintheart could have earned one in his youth. Whether he's lying about it to screw with Scrooge, or that someone cheated him out of payment as well is anyone's guess. Another guess is that Glomgold stole the rand from somebody. Don Rosa supports this theory.
    • John Rockerduck, Scrooge's other rival, has his own Number One Dime to which he's greatly attached. How he got it or why he's so attached to it is unknown, given he was born into wealth, but if freely given Magica can use it to amplify her powers to Archmage levels and steal Scrooge's.
    • A Finnish billionaire had his own Number One coin, and when Magica came to him to try and buy it he told her he wouldn't give it up unless she somehow managed to plant trees in the barren ground near his manor. Magica turned it into a lush forest, and the billionaire gave her the coin... Twice, because when Scrooge stole the six main coins for the Midas Charm from Magica and gave them to the previous owners to bring her back to square one all she had to do with him was ask.
    • The Treasury of Croesus reveals that in the titular Treasury, Croesus has a sealed chamber for his "Greatest Treasure". That treasure is in fact the very first coin the famed inventor of money literally made. He even had to deal with the witch Circe trying to steal it, much like the dynamic between Scrooge and Magica.
• The Simpsons: The Trope Namer was parodied in Issue #102, Uncle Burn$, with Mr. Burns's lucky number one penny. Burns used the penny to earn his fortune during the gold rush, by loading it into a gun and robbing miners. Bart, in revenge for Burns cutting his rope to get the penny when it fell off, uses it to get the floating key of Strobl away from the volcano.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Slash, a recurring Evil Counterpart to the Turtles across multiple continuities, often carries around a small plastic palm tree that he cherishes. In continuities where his origins are as a mutated terrestrial turtle, it's a decoration that was in his tank when he was a normal turtle, that he carries as a keepsake.
• Tintin: Captain Haddock almost gets himself killed over his sailor's cap in Prisoners of the Sun: who'd want to live without their hat?

Fan Works

• A Growing Affection has Naruto's birthday kunai. And while they are weapons (and are used as such at one point), they are cheap, mass-produced version that are designed to be regularly lost or broken on a mission, and recycled rather than maintained. He keeps them in a special case and replaced the normal white cotton hand wraps with silk. They were birthday gifts from Hinata and Sakura while he was training with Jiraiya; they are two of the first birthday gifts he ever got, and also a reminder that even though they were apart, his friends were still thinking of him.
• In The Precious Book Harry attached great importance to a copy of Alice in Wonderland given to him by a kindly bookseller, to the point where he had a breakdown when a mind-controlled Ron Weasley burned it and did little but sob "Murderer" for several weeks thereafter.
• In the Girl Genius story Raised by Jägers, Ducky has a pfennig coin she won from the neighborhood bully in a bet. She keeps it on her nightstand.

Film — Animated

• In Lilo & Stitch, Lilo has a photograph of her parents who were killed in an automobile accident, and it holds priceless sentimental value for her. When Stitch held it, Lilo snaps at him to never touch it. It gets damaged in the showdown with Jumba that also destroys the house, which is the breaking point that prompts Lilo to angrily send him away.
• In Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa, Smithy is attached to a sandwich he carries around to a creepily obsessive degree for reasons unexplained by the plot, and goes after the school bullies when they steal it from him to retrieve it.

Film — Live Action

• Referenced by the villain of Air Force One: "When you talk to the President, you might remind him that I am holding his wife, his daughter, his chief of staff, his national security advisor, his classified papers - and his baseball glove!"
• In Casper, the villainous Carrigan inherits Whipstaff Manor and, after reading a scrap of parchment suggesting it contains buried pirate treasure, hires the movie's human protagonists to get rid of the ghosts so she can access the treasure. At the end, it turns out that the treasure is just some cherished family keepsakes (namely, a baseball glove and a couple of cards), and the parchment Carrigan found was just part of a pirate game that Casper (when he was alive) used to play with his dad.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, an ordinary chess piece is of extraordinary value to Edmond and Fernand.
• In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Peter Quill faces the guards of the Kiln to retrieve his Walkman and "Awesome Mix" cassette, one of his last mementos of his late mother. Drax calls him "an imbecile" for risking his life for them.
  • In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the Big Bad destroys the walkman. This gets brought up as one of two reasons for Peter kicking his ass.
    Peter: You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my walkman.
• Indiana Jones: Indy's iconic hat, resulting in the Indy Hat Roll.
• In Jungle, Yossi carries a small Kabbalistic text given to him by his uncle which he believes keeps him safe. He eventually loses it in the quicksand.
• In the film adaptation of Largo Winch, multimillionaire Nerio Winch recounts to Largo why his switchblade is his most prized possession: It's the first thing he bought with his own money and how he finally stood up to his abusive father.
• Jim's compass, in Muppet Treasure Island, is all he has of the father he can barely remember. He has a near panic attack when Long John pretends like he's going to drop it overboard. Near the end of the film, John proves his affection for the boy by returning it before making his escape.
• The whole plot of Pee-wee's Big Adventure is about Pee Wee looking for his bike, which becomes more valuable in a legal sense when his obnoxious neighbor steals it (only because Pee Wee files a police report and it technically becomes "stolen property"; aside from that, it's just a goofy bike with some doodads and gizmos), but to most people it's just an ugly eyesore. Either way, Pee Wee cannot even sleep comfortably while his precious bike remains missing.
• (Captain) Jack Sparrow's in Pirates of the Caribbean has multiple Number One Dimes throughout the films:
  • First of all, his hat. When he does leave it behind, it's a big deal, eliciting a collective gasp when he tells the crew to "leave it!" and get to safety instead.
  • In the first film, he treats his flintlock pistol the same way — it only carries one shot, and he has no extra shots or powder. He was marooned with it ten years ago and others note that the only person he'll use it on is the one that marooned him. While he threatens others with it, it's clear that he won't actually fire it until the proper time.
  • Later, he treats his MacGuffin-y jar of dirt much the same way.
• In the Popeye film adaptation, one of Bluto's motivations for villainy (other than "I'm mean, if you know what I mean") is getting his hands on Poopdeck Pappy's treasure. When the treasure is finally revealed, it turns out to be things like pictures of Popeye (Pappy's son) as an "infink", Popeye's baby rattle, his baby booties, and other sentimental mementos of Popeye's childhood.
• Pulp Fiction:
  • Butch's watch, which belonged to his father who died in Vietnam. We see just how important it is to him when he finds out that it was left behind as he's on the run from his boss' hit men, and decides to risk his life by going back to his apartment to retrieve it.
  • Jules' "Bad Motherfucker" wallet is more important to him than the money in it.
• In Richie Rich, Big Bad Lawrence Van Dough forces the Riches to open the family vault, where he expects to find the family fortune. Instead, it contains keepsakes precious to them but not particularly valuable to anyone else — not being idiots, they have their material wealth invested in bank accounts, stocks, real estate, etc.
• In Run for the Sun, Mike Latimer keeps a rifle cartridge as a lucky piece. During World War II an enemy soldier had him at gunpoint but the gun misfired. He took out the soldier and kept the bullet because it "...had his name on it."
• In Tiger House, Kelly carries the crossbow bolt responsible for her Career-Ending Injury around with her in her bag. She calls it her 'bad luck charm'. Her boyfriend keeps telling her to get rid of it, and she keeps promising to but never does. It becomes a Chekhov's Gun in the second half of the movie when she is in desperate need of a weapon.
• Mario in The Wages of Fear is very fond of a ticket stub from the Paris subway, that he has framed on his wall and later takes along on his dangerous journey. It encapsulates the memory of a happier time in his life.
• What's the Worst That Could Happen?: The 'lucky ring' Amber gives Kevin. The ring is inherently worthless, but once Max steals it from him, Kevin will go to any length to steal it back, and Max will go to lengths to keep it, even when it ends up costing him a fortune.
• In X-Men, Wolverine's dog-tags. They're about the only link to his past that he has to go on (and even then they have no real useful information, considering they bear his nickname rather than his real name), and when Sabretooth takes them as a trophy, he makes a point of retrieving them at the climax. His giving them to Rogue at the end of the film is taken as an assurance that he's coming back. His throwing them away at the end of X2: X-Men United shows how he's decided to leave his past where it lays and move on to the future.

Literature

• Dagny Taggart of Atlas Shrugged has two — a bracelet from her eventual lover Hank Rearden ("the first thing ever made of Rearden Metal"), making her analogous to Magica de Spell; and the first coin she ever earned working in the capitalist utopia Atlantis, making her analogous to Scrooge McDuck. The similarities between the novel and the Trope Namer hardly stop there.
• In Damn Reincarnation, Eugene's most prized possession is his red necklace from his previous life. It's a Tragic Keepsake that he kept on his person for decades as Hamel Dynas after reclaiming it from the monsters that killed his parents. Even when given the choice of any of the treasures in the Lionhearts's vault, Eugene can't help but pick this cheap, unremarkable necklace because of how much it means to him. But since it's not registered in the vault, Eugene gets to grab Winnead anyways. He continues to wear the necklace everywhere he goes.
• Discworld: Rincewind goes completely berserk when the Librarian threatens his wizard's hat, attacking the Librarian, who's a 300-pound orangutan. The reason it qualifies for this trope? Rincewind's a failed wizard, and his hat says "Wizzard".
• Dortmunder: In What's the Worst That Could Happen?, Dortmunder's partner May inherits a cheap shiny ring from her horse-playing uncle, who always swore the ring brought him luck. On an impulse, Dortmunder puts the ring on before going out on his next job: burgling the supposedly empty beach house of a billionaire. Dortmunder is caught by the billionaire, who — in an act of sheer pettiness — claims the ring is his and takes it off Dortmunder before handing him over to the police. The superstitious Dortmunder escapes from the police and is now convinced that the ring is lucky and that he won't have any good luck until he gets it back. What follows is a string of jobs aimed various properties owned by the billionaire. Ironically, these jobs keep scoring Dortmunder and his accomplices bigger and bigger profits but not the ring. When Dortumunder finally retrieves the ring, May is able to persuade him that maybe the ring is only lucky if he doesn't wear it, and to just leave it in his drawer from now on.
• Instead of spending the sixpence Donald Carmichael gives her in A Little Princess, Sara keeps it to remind herself that, in spite of all the cruelty she's endured, there are still kind people in the world. The 1980s miniseries starring Amelia Shankley adds some Ship Tease to her keeping the coin, as well ("I shall always wear it to remember you by.").
• Valjean's silver candlesticks in Les Misérables. Of the few personal belongings that he keeps, he treats these candlesticks with particular veneration, as they represent the act of kindness that spurred his Heel–Face Turn.
• Redwall's ever-growing tapestry chronicles historic events before and after the abbey's foundation and is therefore priceless to its inhabitants. It's a bad idea to try and damage it or, worse, steal it.

Live-Action TV

• The Afterparty, Sebastian has his 1994 Justin Tunder rookie card misprinted as Turder which he got from robbing a convience store. He ended up losing it to Edgar in a game of Connect Four when they first met as boys. After Edgar fired him, Sebastian pulled an entire heist at his wedding just to steal it back.
• Although Lola from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can fly, the real reason that Coulson loves his '62 Corvette so much is because most of his memories of his father (Who died when he was nine) concern rebuilding that car with him. He may have added some extra features after joining SHIELD, but the important thing to Coulson is that it's still his father's car.
• In Breaking Bad, Walt's old boss Bogdan Wolynetz has the first dollar he made in the car-wash business framed on the wall. When Walt buys the business from him in a shady deal, Bogdan takes a moment to needle him by pointing out a few flaws in the property and then reminding him that the sale is "as-is." When Bogdan finally regretfully hands over the keys and makes as if to take his prized dollar with him before he goes, Walt reminds him that the sale is "as-is" and insists on keeping it. Walt then breaks the case open and uses the dollar to buy a soda.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Kendra's lucky stake, "Mr. Pointy". Though the stake itself is lost for good, Buffy borrows her nickname for it.
• Sam's lucky bottle cap in Cheers. The bottle cap represented something significant in his life: it was off the last bottle of "anything" he drank in his life and it stops him from drinking. At the end of the episode where it is lost, he opens a bottle of beer, pours it into a beer mug and stares at it. Finally, Sam touches the mug ready to pick it up, but instead does his Bar Slide trick perfectly. He then pockets his new lucky bottle cap.
• In Friends, there's Joey's "bedtime penguin pal", Hugsy.
• In Lost, Kate robs a bank to retrieve the toy plane she buried with her childhood sweetheart, who had accidentally died because of her. The plane was being kept in the bank as bait by a US Marshal who was aware that this particular trope was in play, but Kate pulled off the robbery and made her getaway before he could make his move.
• New Tricks: Ted Case's lucky charm is a cigarette case that stopped a bullet. Although he tries to act calm, he goes into a panic when he loses it in the episode "Life Expectancy".
• Only Murders in the Building has Teddy Dimas showing he keeps an old silver coin framed for being a symbolic family heirloom: his grandma escaped from the Armenian genocide to New York, and while paying for the trip she was allowed to keep two coins to build a new life. She decided to only spend one.
• Person of Interest. Harold Finch has an Oh, Crap! moment when Nathan Ingram's nephew finds the champagne cork from the bottle they used to celebrate the Machine going online.
• Relic Hunter: In "Diamond in the Rough", Sydney is hired to find the lucky baseball glove of 'Smiling' Jimmy Jonesboro, which was stolen during the 1946 World Series. Essentially worthless (Jonesboro bought it for one dollar at a garage sale), he was willing to pay $5000 to get it back in 1946. In the present day, a current major league player is willing to pay a seven-figure sum to locate it, in the hope it will give him the same mojo Jonesboro had.
• In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Vice Principal Kraft had saved up for years to buy his very own bar of gold. Sabrina, who is volunteering for a rummage sale but is too attached to her own possessions to give up, unwittingly puts some of her aunt's magical ones for sale. Kraft buys a safe box for his bar of gold and finds out that it can duplicate the gold bar. He quickly sets to work creating more gold bars, first dozens and then hundreds. When Sabrina asks him which is the original bar that he worked so hard for so long to own, he is unable to answer, as it's in the room with all the other bars that he made with the duplicator box. Sabrina, to avoid suspicion that she's a witch, claims she's an alien and orders Mr. Kraft to return the box, and donate all the duplicated gold to the rummage sale's cause.
• A non-comedy example is Captain Sisko's baseball from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When he leaves it on the station after abandoning it to the Dominion, Gul Dukat takes it as a message that says "I'll be back". In a later episode, when Sisko leaves the station and takes the baseball with him, his second in command Colonel Kira takes it as a sign that he might not ever be coming back, which ascribes its remaining in the finale (while he ascended to full Emissary) a great meaning. (And yes, in the Expanded Universe, he came back).

Manhwa

• K's compensation for fulfilling his clients' wishes in I Wish is to get their most treasured thing. Usually ends up being utterly worthless stuff like a jar full of egoism, greed or a piggybank with barely 5.000 Won in it. Subverted when it turns out said treasured thing could also end up being a person and their life.

Music

• Elvis Presley: "Don't you step on my blue suede shoes"
• Self's "Marathon Shirt", where the narrator is overly attached to a t-shirt he's owned since he was twelve. This comes to the point of referring to the shirt with female pronouns and saying that the shirt wears him instead of the other way around.

Newspaper Comics

• Linus' security blanket in Peanuts. Linus is fine as long as he has it, but removing it makes him increasingly nervous, tense, and erratic the longer they're separated. In one strip, Snoopy tries to do a dash-and-grab while Linus is seemingly dozing with it. Linus tightens his grip, snapping Snoopy back as it goes taut, spins around a couple times as Snoopy's still holding on, then does a whipping motion to make Snoopy let go. And then there's the times Lucy stole or tried to steal it. Don't mess with Linus' blanket.

Tabletop Games

• Vampire: The Masquerade has this as one of the "faults" a player can give their character... while the character is in possession of their item they get certain bonuses, but if they ever lose contact with it then they get harsh stat losses. The player is then compelled to get the item back, even if doing so greatly conflicts with the current adventure.

Theatre

• Avenue Q: Princeton finds a penny on the ground from the year he was born, which he takes as a sign that he will have good luck on Avenue Q. Later becomes one for Kate Monster when he gifts it to her as a token of his love for her.

Video Games

• Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress can get attached to any weapon they have used for a long time, no matter its material or quality. This can get Fun when they get attached to their wooden training weapons.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening: During the Golden Gaffe DLC map, Severa is furious the monsters stole her purse, before unexpectedly tearing up and commenting that gold was a gift from her mother before she died. Given Severa is otherwise incredibly spendthrift and has a very strained relationship with her mother in the present day (time travel is involved), holding on to those coins for so long means a lot.
• Lynne from Ghost Trick always wears a fake police badge on her chest because a certain detective gave it to her when she was younger, and she has pursued her dream to become one ever since.
• Rean from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III has a display of Crow's 50 mira alongside his photos of his family and friends in his desk at his room.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask you receive the Keaton Mask from the Curiosity Shop owner, admitting the mask is worth very little but was symbolic to his relationship with Kafei.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Link's first weapon is Orca's old, well-used Hero's Sword, which is quickly dismissed by Tetra as "cheap." The in-game narration gives it more respect than most of the other items, and Link decides to take it with him when he goes on a new adventure at the end of the game.
• The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck begins with Scrooge McDuck giving one dime each to Huey, Dewey, and Louie on their birthday. When the triplets ask Scrooge why he gave them those instead of some toys, Scrooge states that when he was their age, he started his fortune with just one dime, and because of his hard work, he ended up becoming the world's richest duck. He states to the triplets that how lucky their dimes will be depends on how hard they work, encouraging them to work for their dreams. Just then, Magica de Spell's crows capture the nephews and hide them and their dimes in different parts of the world, while Magica steals Scrooge's #1 dime. Donald's goal in the game is to save his nephews and recover all four dimes. At the end of the game, Scrooge gives Donald his own lucky dime as a reward. One must wonder what Donald did with it, or what he learned from this.
• Mass Effect:
  • Wrex's old family armor. Wrex himself calls it a "piece of crap" and makes it clear he only cares about it because he promised his grandfather (the one relative he respected) that he'd get it back from the thief who stole it. Retrieving the armor secures Wrex's loyalty.
  • Zaeed's old Avenger rifle, Jesse, which never jammed or misfired for over a decade of use until one day it simply gave out and couldn't be repaired. He still has it, and attaches an almost ludicrous value to the useless gun. (At one point in Mass Effect 3: Citadel, Samara hears him talking about Jesse and mistakes "her" for his wife.) During the third game, however, he buys a kit to rebuild the gun so he can use it for his greatest, and probably final, battle.
• Persona 2: A decade prior to the events of the game, Tatsuya and Jun exchanged their most prized possessions; an expensive watch and an engraved lighter respectively, to seal a promise. The two have been treating those trinkets as their most prized possessions since.
• Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 is wearing a wide-brimmed hat for some reason. Shooting it off nets an achievement... and makes Mr. X pick up the pace in chasing you.
• The Sims 2 Open For Business allows a Sim starting a new business to frame the first simoleon they earn.
• Tales from the Borderlands: Fiona is given a single bullet for her gun at the beginning of her story. In Episode 3 she's given an entire box of bullets, and, if she kept it, that one bullet ceases to be an ace-in-the-hole and becomes a sentimental token reminder that anyone can betray her.
• Tales of Vesperia has Estelle's Mother's Memento, a flower ornament she received before her mother died and carries with her everywhere. In an optional event she lets Yuri hang on to it as she feels she doesn't need it anymore. It's actually required for Secret Mission 17, where you have to use the item during the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight against her to get a reaction that proves she's not too far gone (and also to remove her Iron Stance so that it is somewhat beatable).

Visual Novels

• Melody’s acoustic guitar in Melody, given to her by her late mother. At the start of the story, it is in the possession of her ex-boyfriend, Steve, who refuses to return it. Later, Steve works with Bethany to steal the guitar when Melody is giving a concert. If MC mishandles the situation, and Steve destroys the instrument, it will be a bad ending. However, if he succeeds in defusing the situation, he will use it to gain greater control over Melody’s career.

Webcomics

• Mildly subverted in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: He would prefer if you didn't destroy his robe... but only because the one who gave it to him is a very sadistic little ferret.
• Lothar from Exterminatus Now will go utterly friggin' berserk if you touch his hat.
• Girl Genius Jägers appear to have this relation with their hats.
  • Maxim gives his hat to Lars, as a sign of respect for Lars fighting and dying for the Heterodyne.
  • Some of the Jägers get together and make a ridiculously huge, flame-spewing metal hat for Gil, whom they respect a lot. Not only for his poppa's actions, but Gil had very recently taken down a couple of the clanks that were attacking the town, forcing the rest to retreat or surrender.
• In MegaTokyo, Piro is assaulted when an image of Erika is accidentally ripped.
• In the Narbonic special, A Brief Moment of Culture, Mell is revealed to particularly cherish a certain newspaper clipping. Head Pet Artie proceeds to use this information to trigger a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Penny Arcade features an occasional running gag involving Gabe and Tycho repeatedly killing each other over a Pac-Man watch.
• Tower of God: Anaak's stone pendant that she left with her mother when they parted. When she meets her mother's murderer, she gets to see it again.

Web Original

• 3rd Life SMP: Played for Drama. The Dogwarts banner which Scar steals on Day 5. It's from the first batch of banners created; when everyone else points out they have many more identical banners, Martyn says it holds sentimental value… hence Dogwarts' relentless attempts to kill Scar, since he's stuck the thing on his shield and has constantly held on to it. This culminates into literal battles where many server-members are killed, sometimes permanently, and Dogwarts never end up getting their banner back in the end.
• On the Dream SMP, Tommy's discs are practically worthless and are indistinguishable from any other copies of Cat and Mellohi, but the amount of memories attached to them gives them a lot of sentimental value to Tommy. The discs are so closely associated with him that they are seen as the Iconic Item of the character's content creator counterpart.

Western Animation

• DuckTales (1987), of course, has the Trope Namer dime, the first dime Scrooge ever earned, even if the person paying him was trying to skimp out on payment. In the cartoon it's given more of a vaguely mystical nature, since on the occasions when it does go missing, Scrooge's fortune starts to fall apart. It's also made explicit that any power it has comes from Scrooge's long possession, meaning traveling to the past to seize it Will Not Work.
• The opening theme animation of DuckTales (2017) shows the McDuck clan chasing the dime through the credits. The third episode has Louie accompany Scrooge to his office and, mistaking the dime for an emergency one kept by the soda machine in case someone doesn't have enough change, he uses it to buy a drink and must get it back before Scrooge finds out. Then it turns out the dime in the case was a decoy - Scrooge wears the real dime on chain around his neck at all times, and at one point explains that being paid with an American coin is what inspired him to move to America to seek his fortune. In the reboot it's depicted as a Mercury Dime explaining its larger size. Then we find out that Magica de Spell is imprisoned within Scrooge's dime, and has been for fifteen years prior to the beginning of the series. Scrooge himself is briefly trapped in the dime when Magica escapes, and is able to get out after Dewey apologizes for blaming him for Della's disappearance.
  • Subverted with Louie himself, who is given the decoy dime as a reward by Scrooge, and announces that he intends to keep it, maybe even get it its own velvet pillow. He then absently spends it on a soft drink again.
  • The episode "The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!" reveals that, just like in the comics, the dime was given to Scrooge's first client by none other than Scrooge's father Fergus, who wanted to inspire his son.
  • In "The Ballad of Duke Baloney!" it's revealed that many years ago, Scrooge paid a dime to the South African shoeshine boy Duke Baloney in an attempt to replicate his own origin. Unlike Scrooge, Duke took offense that the rich duck shortchanged him (Scrooge actually fell unconscious from the job, so he couldn't really take offense anyway), demanding the dollar fee for the shine. Then when Scrooge refused and insulted him, Duke stole a money clip from Scrooge that contained two million dollars, and used the money to start a business under the alias "Flintheart Glomgold" to have his revenge on Scrooge.
  • In "The Duck Knight Returns" Darkwing Duck actor Drake Mallard has his dented Darkwing Duck lunchbox. The lunchbox is a reminder of how the old show taught him to always get back up when he first stood up against his school bully.
• As in the comic books, Two-Face in Batman: The Animated Series carries a scarred Two-Headed Coin, which he uses to make all his decisions. The non-unique nature of the talisman is exploited by Batman in one episode; when Two-Face throws the coin in the air to decide whether or not to shoot him, Batman grabs a nearby bucket of similar coins and throws them into the air as well. Unable to tell which coin is his, Two-Face can't make a decision, and Batman easily captures him.
  • And since the coin is his kryptonite, Batman’s been able to defeat him numerous times by taking away the coin. In “Almost Got’em” he stole the coin off Harvey and used its sharpened edge to cut through his bonds to escape a death trap. And in another episode, Batman switched his coin with a trick coin that would always land on edge, leaving him unable to do anything because the coin wouldn’t tell Harvey what to do.
• In The Legend of Korra, Mako almost always wears a simple red scarf that had previously belonged to his dead father, and snaps when a waiter tries to take it off of him during his makeover at Kuang's Cuisine in the episode "The Voice in the Night". He later gives it to his long-lost grandmother when they meet in "The Earth Queen", saying he is sure his parents would want her to have it.
• The Simpsons did it too, in the form of Mr. Burns's old teddy bear, Bobo, which was a parody of Citizen Kane's Rosebud.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Mr. Krabs also has a First Dime. When he finds it missing, he accuses Squidward of stealing it, causing him to quit. Later, Krabs finds it in his back pocket — and it's a huge stone wheel.
    Spongebob: That's a dime?
    Mr. Krabs: I've been in business a long time, boy.
  • In another episode, SpongeBob accidentally gets paint on Krabs' First Dollar earned, which he has framed and hanging on his home. His attempts to get the paint removed fail, but Mr. Krabs then finds out and reveals saliva can remove the paint.
  • And in another, Krabs' millionth dollar is swallowed by a giant clam (parodying Jaws), to whom Krabs trades most of his body to get it back.
    Spongebob: What'd you give him?
    Krabs: (hops on deck, revealing that only one arm, half his torso, and his head are left) Nothing important!
• Tangled: The Series: Eugene/Flynn carries a small hair comb, which he claims is the first thing he ever stole. He even went so far as to have it personalized with his alias's name.

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