What age does a guitar become vintage

timhulio

MattFGBI said:

I think it's probably 70's and older. You don't really see any reissues from the 80's!

Reissue this already!

Skipped

timhulio said:

A 1973 Les Paul Deluxe is a vintage guitar because a) OLD and b) THIS GUY

You are right.
As I am not Tom Petty i will back down.

digitalscream

I thought it was when TGP says so...?

ToneControl

I thought that "vintage" just means "I am charging more than the price a second hand instrument should cost, but you'll pay it because they are in short supply, and might be cooler in some way"

IanSavage

mrchi said:

For me I only class a guitar as vintage at 35 years but that's just me

Fuck, I'm almost vintage myself  

chrisj1602

50s or 60s is what I immediately think of.

Bucket

timhulio said:

MattFGBI said:

I think it's probably 70's and older. You don't really see any reissues from the 80's!

Reissue this already!

[Performer]

Yes. Do what this man says.

citizen68

cj73;666665" said:

Awesome…my RG will be vintage in 2 years….

Hmmm - my RG is 28 - does that count?

Neil

Skarloey said:

I like the simpler use of the term as used in the wine world. Am I right in saying that, with wine, 'vintage' might have connotations of 'old' if it's a bottle from a while back, but it mainly means 'this wine is from a year declared very good for its type'. 2006 was declared a vintage year in Bordeaux for instance.

I think when it comes to flogging guitars, 'vintage' is too often indiscriminately thrown around as an epithet applied to various stuff, some of which is old, rare and good and a lot of which is rubbish.

Exactly right.

The term was originally an appellation for wine but has been bandied around so often in the guitar world it has no meaning.

No one talks of a vintage Marlin do they and yet they must be around thirty years old now?

ICBM

Neil said:

No one talks of a vintage Marlin do they and yet they must be around thirty years old now?

It will happen sooner or later, in the same way as 60s and 70s cheap crap is now called "vintage".

57Deluxe

Vintage is a ratio dependent upon your age...

EricTheWeary

A vintage car is 1919 to 1930 as I understand it. Not very helpful in guitar terms but the point is, I think, that represents the transition from defining what a car is ( so, not including early experimentation) to the point where mass production was established. In electric guitar terms that's mid 50's up to what ? Early 70's I think - by which point guitars coming out of the US, far East and Europe had become roughly generic. 

I think, say, 1954 to 1974 would cover the introduction, manufacture (and reintroduction) of most standard electric guitar shapes ( Strat, tele, Les Paul , V, explorer, SG, 335, Rickies, precision, jazz) and their establishment as the basis of what was coming out of factories. Alternative shapes designed in Japan or Europe having to a large extent been killed off by then. 

ChuckManual

The problem is the term itself.  '59 Les Pauls were deemed "vintage" in the mid-70's when they were only 15 years old, or so ...and that definition simply cannot be the case today.  For instance; my 1998 Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 is NOT vintage - that's just laughable.

The comic book industry has "ages" to describe the different eras of production;

The Golden Age - late 1930's to mid 50's.

The Silver Age - mid 50's to early 70's.

The Bronze Age - early 70's to mid 80's.

The Modern Age - mid 80's to now.

There's also a sort of pre-Golden age, to cover everything that happened before comic-buying exploded in popularity with Superman and Batman in 1938/39 - and the ages keep growing, of course.  I remember when the mere idea of a Bronze Age was deemed utterly ridiculous, but it's definitely here now ...and the Copper Age must surely be on its way.

Perhaps the guitar community could adopt something similar?

...plus - think of the entertainment value we'd get out of the arguments discussions of what goes where!

crunchman

Whatever the correct dictionary definition is, to some extent I think we tend to use it in the guitar world when something has gone up in value and maybe become collectable.  That's not purely an age thing though.

An 85 Les Paul is nothing special and you could buy one for less than you would pay for a new one .  An 85 PRS will probably cost 3 times the cost of a new one.  I'm not certain that I'd call the PRS Vintage though.

I think the wine argument about things being declared vintage because it is a good year has some bearing.  Should something as horrible as a late 70's Strat ever be called vintage?  Or the Martin purists will look down on anything between 68 (or thereabouts - I may be a year out) and 88 because the bridge plate is made from the wrong material.

monquixote

Vintage means the people who lusted after them as teenagers are now in their 30s-40s and can drop some serious cash on them. 

Plenty of stuff from the 90's is vintage.

Think about the:

Charvel Surfcaster

Dod Meatbox

Akai Deep Impact 

Tele Plus

When I first started playing guitar all the overpriced reissues and stuff seemed to be about Hank Marvin, then it all went Clapton, then it was all about Slash and now we're seeing Jonny Marr, Kurt Cobain, J Mascis, Chris Cornell guitars it's all about the generation with the cash.

Sassafras

Since ebay, vintage means about as much as "rare" "collectable" "sought after" "shabby chic" and a lot of other words that basically mean "Junk".

BigMonka

monquixote said:

Vintage means the people who lusted after them as teenagers are now in their 30s-40s and can drop some serious cash on them. 

That's certainly the deal with (modern) classic cars, all the things like Novas, 205GTI and Williams Clios are becoming collectible because they were the cars which were just out of reach for the people who were teenagers at the time but are now earning good money.

monquixote

BigMonka said:

monquixote said:

Vintage means the people who lusted after them as teenagers are now in their 30s-40s and can drop some serious cash on them. 

That's certainly the deal with (modern) classic cars, all the things like Novas, 205GTI and Williams Clios are becoming collectible because they were the cars which were just out of reach for the people who were teenagers at the time but are now earning good money.

That's it. 

Anything that teenage boys have pictures of on their bedroom wall will become collectable in about 15 years. 

In my case that means Yasmine Bleeth has just become collectable

Plukky

I subscribe to the "golden age" theory.

So *if* they float your boat, I see no problem with the following being considered vintage in years to come:

Dan Smith Strats

'85 PRSs

Early 90's Fender Custom Shop

etc

But there has to be some implied quality alongside the age...

Clarky

don't know about the others.. but for Fenders I'd always thought of vintage as being "pre-CBS"