Except for ship and cultural items, items aren't of much use to me.

[clif9710]

I find that it isn't worth taking the influence hit to build union halls and put the items to use. The savings in money or workers or the increase in productivity doesn't make it worth spending the influence points. I can see where if land is tight they might come in handy. Some of them, epic or legendary, are worth considering but otherwise they just pile up in my warehouses.

[Chaosium]

A few rare can be useful, some epics are absolutely vital, and most legendary make life a lot easier, common/uncommon are junk

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Storing influence gets you nothing.
Items are ultimately a money/resource sink as well as something else to do besides 'place more buildings'.

You can even use some of the basic ones to have the game running unsupervised without having to worry about certain things, or to skip some steps.

[Wuik]

Hi,
Some item are totally vital or very useful even commun ..
For exemple :
Intoxicator , put it in the town hall and you are able to sell all your schnaps'production ...

Actor Rare item , put it in the town hall and you don't have to canned food AND Rhum was fulfilled provided too..

Brasserie Patron Mertens , town hall too ,sausage, bread, and beer are fulfilled provided too..

And if, you are playing whithout any DLC , you will be totally blocked in the game still you get this Legendary item : Gerard F.uchs, of the patent eyeglass. to put in a trade union.
Simply because they is not enougth iron and zync mines to make alls the glasses on a map , you will must to produce ^^

[Primigenia]

Some production items and expert are really powerful, change or simplify production chains, strengthen production and raw meterial output, some even give free electricity or goods

[clif9710]

Originally posted by POWER WITHIN USER:

Storing influence gets you nothing.
Items are ultimately a money/resource sink as well as something else to do besides 'place more buildings'.

You can even use some of the basic ones to have the game running unsupervised without having to worry about certain things, or to skip some steps.

Storing influence doesn't make sense it needs to be used, but I find that particularly with ship building, influence disappears fast and there critical buildings such as the commuter pier that take away 15 influence in one go.

I admit the input substitution items are a help - I like being able to sub wool for cotton fabric, eliminating a new-to-old world transfer.