when does a guitar become "vintage"

[johnnyb]

just curious when a guitar becomes vintage enough to post on this sight. ive been seeing some 80's stuff here and there. is early 90's acceptable? i know antique is 100 years. classic is 25. whats vintage? hmmm

[Michael Ambrose]

I tend to think that if you can put QQ plates on it, its vintage.

(For those of you not from Jersey, "QQ" is the license place designation for a car that is 25-years-old.)

On average, its takes any guitar at least 30 years to start to appreciate beyond their original value... 25 years to call a guitar vintage sounds fair.

[Bob K]

In my experience, when a dealer is trying to sell me a 40 year old guitar, it's "vintage". When that dealer is looking at the 40 year old guitar I'm trading in, it's "used".

Bob

[cheepaxes]

My standard answer is that the term comes from wine making and refers to when the wine was made. Applying that to guitars, a guitar becomes vintage as soon as it's made. You could have a guitar that's of a '60s vintage, or '70s, or 1897 or 1997 or 2010. Using this definition, the term vintage doesn't reall mean anything without knowing the actual year (or at least the rough time period). Or, put another way, the actual age of the instrument is what has meaning, not whether we can apply the (somewhat arbitrary) term "vintage" to it.

That's my answer and I'm sticking with it. :)

-Scott

[mdjohnson1]

I think 25 years is a standard assumption for "vintage" (therefore no 90's) ... but I prefer Bob's answer! I guess it depends who you ask.

[Ande]