How do you know it's "vintage"? Part 1

These days there's a lot of interest in all things vintage -- clothing, jewelry, dinnerware, glass, old appliances -- you name it, and there's probably someone who values and desires it. Some buy vintage items because they remind them of their childhood; some to add to family heirlooms, or replace something lost or broken; some because things made in the past were usually made to last, and were meant to be repaired rather than thrown away; and some because those older objects have both a style and a substance that is not present in modern items (despite calculated efforts by today's manufacturers to imitate the style of older pieces.)

But what is "vintage", and how do sellers know whether something is truly old and not a modern version?

For starters, let's look at the term "vintage," and what it means as applied to objects for sale. For comparison, "antique" is defined by U.S. customs laws as something that is at least 100 years old, and that has become the common usage in this country for most items (as with any rule there are exceptions, of course, which I won't go into here.) Unfortunately, "vintage" has no equivalent generally accepted definition. The word itself comes from wine-making, meaning the wine from a particular year's grape harvest; however, its usage has evolved to mean something that "represent[s] the high quality of a past time" (Random House Dictionary, 2010), or that evokes the past era in which it was created -- for instance, in the striking architectural lines of Art Deco pieces. More recently it has been used to indicate anything that is older than a given time period. On many of the popular online selling sites, including Etsy, Artfire, Ruby Lane, and Atomic Mall, an item must be at least twenty years old to be sold as "vintage."

You can't automatically assume something is vintage just because it's worn, dirty, or "looks old." I've seen dishes only a few years old that have more wear to their decorations than some that are 50+ years old, and it doesn't take long for neglected objects to develop a coating of grime that could be mistaken for age. And these days, with manufacturers trying to capitalize on interest in things that have a vintage look, I often find myself picking up pieces that appear at first glance to be older, only to find that they're marked "Made in China" or have an original store sticker on the bottom with a barcode. [Note: barcodes were invented in the early 1960s, but did not come into widespread use until the early- to mid-1980s.]

As a seller of vintage items, I have to be a sleuth, a student of my areas of focus, a resourceful researcher, and sometimes I have to rely on instinct for those things that I can't immediately identify. For a lot of things, it's just an educated guess, or a "feel" -- no matter how much I have studied, there's no way I can possibly identify everything I find on sight. But I can't rely solely on that gut reaction: I then have to investigate the item and confirm my instinct through research.

My next entry will look at research and resources: the most important tools a vintage seller can cultivate. Thanks for reading, and I hope it's been helpful!

Discovering Vintage: An Introduction

Dis·cov·er
dis·cov·ered, dis·cov·er·ing, dis·cov·ers 1. To notice or learn, especially by making an effort


Have you ever wondered what makes something vintage? How do you tell a dress made in the 1940s from a 1940s-style dress made in the 1970s? How do marks on jewelry provide dates? What's the difference between a vintage piece of china and one made by the same company today?

Welcome to Discovering Vintage! This site aims to promote the love of vintage through education and skill-sharing from collectors and sellers alike. We hope to teach ways of identifying genuine vintage items that will give you confidence when choosing vintage pieces for your home, wardrobe or collections, and help you weed out the questionable from the legitimate. We hope you learn to love it as much as we do!