Since when is 1970s "vintage" ?

[MontanaMatt]

Yay, I’m vintage

[DavidKOS]

I think it depends on the types of instruments you're assigning the term "vintage" to: certainly as a drummer I would consider a 1960's Gretsch drum kit "vintage", and and a 1960's Fender Telecaster "vintage".

That's the loose way the terms are used, as previous posts have noted.

BUT

The way the terms should be used would be as follows:

A 1960's vintage Gretsch drum set

A 1960 vintage Tele

Thus the terms are specific to year.

Technically, it could also have other instruments referred to as

2017 vintage F hole mandolin

2015 vintage Mastertone copy banjo

etc.

Like in wine, "vintage" is just the year it was bottled...uh, made...whatever.

[sblock]

"Old age ain't no place for sissies." Bette Davis

Too true...and you are probably 'vintage' if you don't know who Bette Davis was.

[pops1]

Yay, I’m vintage

According to this thread that means I started Retro. Good Grief!

[Eric Platt]

Another variant on the marketing aspect of vintage. Using it to sell something that might not really hold up in comparison to what is being made today. Looks like others have sort of touched on it. Compare a 1960's or 1970's import mandolin to an equivalent Eastman or Kentucky. While some will argue for the earlier models, there is something to be said about the quality that is coming out of factories right now.

While that was a comparison of mandolins, I see it even more in guitars. Both acoustic and electric. To stay afloat in today's market, everyone is building the best they can.

[Jeff Hildreth]

Every year is "vintage".

Vintage applied to anything but wine is a marketing ploy and nothing more.

It is arbitrary and has no voracity against any base line or standard.. ie utter BS.

My first guitar purchased in 1961 was a 1939 Martin 00-17, it was U S E D . It was not vintage, or Pre War or any other hyped nonsense, it was used guitar. Its main attributes were that it was in excellent condition, looked good, played well and had an adult nut width of 1 3/4".. I bought it for $4 (yes, four dollars)

Hucksters (huxsters and hustlers) escalated prices by palabric garbage to enhance and create artificial value. One such revered company who was at the pinnacle of this sham is now defunct. RIP .. (intralinear inspection required) I have no reverence only marvel for the hat trick.


Keep this one phrase in mind from the ad man's bible:

Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

[Jeff Hildreth]

"Old age ain't no place for sissies." Bette Davis


"Too true...and you are probably 'vintage' if you don't know who Bette Davis was."

Do you have an idea how clever you are for posting this or was it "accidental" brilliance. ?

[Mandoplumb]

Jeff a guitar made in 1939 WAS pre-war. It was made before the second world war, the Viet Nam war, the war in Irac, ect. It is also post war Made after the War Between the States, the war of 1812, the first world war........?..

[J.Albert]

"Vintage" refers to the period or year an instrument hails from.

It does not convey or infer a level of quality, per se.

Would you prefer a "vintage" 1973 Gibson F-5 to one fresh from the shop of Dave Harvey & crew, today?

[Pete Martin]

I lived through the 70's and I'm VINTAGE!!!

[Jill McAuley]

That's the loose way the terms are used, as previous posts have noted.

BUT

The way the terms should be used would be as follows:

A 1960's vintage Gretsch drum set

A 1960 vintage Tele

Thus the terms are specific to year.

Technically, it could also have other instruments referred to as

2017 vintage F hole mandolin

2015 vintage Mastertone copy banjo

etc.

Like in wine, "vintage" is just the year it was bottled...uh, made...whatever.

Okay, amending my original reply as I was confused as to the distinction David was making, but now see the reference to wine and get it. Just to muddy the waters more though, if you go by the Cambridge Dictionary definition it refers to "vintage" as a noun in relation to wine, OR as an adjective in relation to something being old.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/...nglish/vintage

[Jack Roberts]

Am I am vintage Cafe member?

[pops1]

I lived through the 70's and I'm VINTAGE!!!

If you are vintage, I lived thru the 50's. I still find that hard to believe when I write it.

[Dan Adams]

I’ve too have began to wonder if the term ‘vintage’ is over used in the marketing of instruments. I have three instruments from the 70’s and one from the 80’s, but none I would consider vintage. Now my 1917 Gibson I would consider vintage. Is 100 years old the mark to consider an instrument vintage? I too am a ‘vintage’ Cafe member!

[DHopkins]

I crawled out of the turnip patch in the early 40s. Does that make me vintage?

[Folkmusician.com]

Is 100 years old the mark to consider an instrument vintage?

That is antique, though for some reason "antique mandolin" sound like another way of saying "wall hanger". Strange how a couple of words matter as much as they do.

[ajh]

Yup, I'm vintage. And not so slowly turning to vinegar.

[DHopkins]

That is antique, though for some reason "antique mandolin" sound like another way of saying "wall hanger". Strange how a couple of words matter as much as they do.

...except that mine's not hanging on the wall. I use it frequently in gigs.

[Jim Garber]

When I was young there was no vintage instruments. There was new and used and used were, for the most part, not as good as brand new. Why would you want something that was played by someone else with germs and dirt and wear when you could get a brand new one right off the shelf of your local music store?

I think my first used guitar was a 1972 Telecaster which I bought from Buylines, a local NY classified ad newspaper. It would not have been called vintage.

There were very few solely or mostly vintage dealers in existence even in the 1970s. Matt Umanov and Mandolin Brothers were in NYC and Gruhn in Nashville, Sandy's Music and Music Emporium in Cambridge, MA and probably a few more scattered around the country were just starting up about then, I believe. I know a lot of those guys all started as collectors who realized that dealing could bring them closer to these "used" instruments than many folks just wanted to unload as well as giving them the ability to fund their purchases. (Forgive me if I am off on the dates but i am working from my hazy memory).

I would not be surprised if one of those guys above coined the term vintage for desirable used instruments that would not be considered museum quality or antiques.

BTW, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think I have ever hear violin dealers talk of stringed instruments (old or otherwise) as vintage.

[Mando Mort]

George Gruhn once defined the word "vintage" with regard to musical instruments as meaning the going price for the instrument in question is greater than the price of a brand new model.

[Mark Gunter]

A simpler answer:

Since when is [some particular item from the] 1970s "vintage" ?

That would be since whenever folk routinely begin to refer to some particular item as vintage, probably some time after the turn of the century.

For all you geezers like me (I was born mid-century, '55), just face it, we're ancient already. Get over it.

[Steve Ostrander]

The 50's doesn't seem like vintage to me and all those 60's Harmony and Kay instruments don't have mojo in my book they were just crappy instruments that I bought because I couldn't afford the good ones.

I'm with ya Mike. In the seventies I played a Harmony Rocket that I got for next to nothing. Now they are "vintage" and go for five times what they sold for back then. It's still an entry-level cheap guitar in my book.

[Willie Poole]

As I read all of these definitions I ask myself, "Does it really matter", old is old and new is new, used is used, and beat up is beat up, not distressed...(But that`s another subject)...Does "Vintage" suggest that it is more valuable? I have a 1962 mandolin and I hope it goes up in value...

Willie

[allenhopkins]

...There were very few solely or mostly vintage dealers in existence even in the 1970s. Matt Umanov and Mandolin Brothers were in NYC and Gruhn in Nashville, Sandy's Music and Music Emporium in Cambridge, MA and probably a few more scattered around the country were just starting up about then...

Eldon Stutzman in Rochester NY, where I worked (Saturdays only -- that's the only day the store was open) around 1970-71 or so. His son Dave still runs Stutzman's Guitar Center here. My 1920's Gibson F-2 that I played in the ol' Flower City Ramblers came from there, as did my friend Bob's Gibson Granada banjo "pot," which Bob had Randy Wood make a five-string neck for. I could inventory my collection of six dozen or so stringed instruments, and attribute well over half of them to the Stutzmans, from 1970 to now.

Back in those days, we took a car trip west as far as Denver, where I bought a pair of cowboy boots in 1973. Still have 'em; guess they're "vintage" now, instead of just "old."

One of the things that seemed to kick off the "vintage" market, was the perceived differences in quality over a half-century. Gibson mandolins from the '20's vs. those from the '70's, scalloped bracing on older Martin guitars vs. the heavier post-war braces, "pre-CBS" Fender solid-bodies, "PAF' pickups on Gibsons -- the list goes on. Also, the lack of less-expensive instruments for those just starting out, as Harmony and Kay faded away; going "used" was the alternative.

Nowadays, with perhaps a small number of exceptions, new instruments match in quality their "vintage" counterparts; their are smaller firms and individual builders whose products stack up against any from the teens or '20's, IMHO. Vintage has become the target of collectors, or those who must have a specific instrument from a specific era -- often for non-musical reasons. Musicians who are out there playing are, in large part, glad to find and use good new instruments -- which weren't as available when "vintage" became an attractive market term.

[Roger Moss]

For all you geezers like me (I was born mid-century, '55), just face it, we're ancient already. Get over it.

Got over it already. I was 40 when people started calling me "Mr Moss." It took me 10 years to get used to that little indignity. Now I just let it go. I seemed to be the only one it bothered.