What makes baseball cards and photos vintage?
 

Hi, everyone, What makes baseball cards and photos-vintage? Mostly interested in the classification for photos, but knowing when they are to be called vintage would help. I have heard people say, anything at least 20 years and older is called vintage. Thanks, John Forget to ask, what makes a photo, bb card- valuable?... If there vintage?

Think it can vary by person. You ask a 65 year old what is vintage, it's one thing. Ask a 25- 30 year old, they'll say something entirely different, like maybe anything before they were born.

For me, I guess I'm more influenced by the old SCD catalogs, and consider vintage as pre-1981, when Donruss and Fleer started offering baseball cards alongside Topps and brought on what is known as the modern junk card era. That is the same break point Krause/SCD used in deciding what they considered as modern and vintage when producing their catalogs.

I don't think anyone would argue that pre-war (WWII) is most definitely vintage. At least no one is using the term "antique", well, at least not among people in the hobby itself. Had always thought of the cutoff for an antique as being at least 100 years old, an age which a large part of what many of us collect has now crossed..

You'll get different answers to this....and I have been told various things,,,but in cars I was always told 25 year technically makes them and antique and you can apply that generally across the board as well to "vintage"...with cards I was always told it was 1972 and earlier...some say 73 because that was the last year of series if I am correct.

I would agree with Pre 1981 (as the 1975 and 1980 Topps Sets are outstanding - IMHO)

But who knows - In 30 years - the 2000 Topps cards will be 50 years old - will they be considered Vintage?

You know - "the older we get - the older we get"

The first part of this is ever so true - I worked in an antique shop for many years beginning in 1998 and constantly would have people come in and ask me if I bought "old" baseball cards. I always told them I would look at them. In every case they would be 1988 Donruss or newer. To them these were "old" cards. Some of the people were just not knowledgeable and some thought the cards were really old. I always politely told them I wasn't interested and suggested a place in town who advertised they bought all sports cards.

Vintage clue--
 

One evening I received a phone call asking if I bought baseball cards.. I asked the caller if they were older cards...his reply he really wasn't sure but they were small, bingo I said to myself--My reply yes I was definitely interested in seeing them.----they all ended up being 1909 vintage cards,

All of those responses are correct, and give you an idea of how nebulous 'vintage' might be. For me, I think of Pre-Topps. 48 Bowmans and Tip Top Bread are near the newest of the vintage. 1951 Bowmans are there, at the edge.

I once read something about an American from the south, he goes to college here, maybe graduates in the 50's. Later in life he was the editor of a national magazine, here. He got a Rhodes scholarship, and goes to England to study. I think he's at Oxford. He's trying to research something that happened close in time to World War I, he's in the History Department, and he can't find anything close to his search. He asks for help, and he is politely told that this is the History Department, anything that recent would be found in the Journalism Department.

The point is that 'vintage' is a subjective target. Golly, when I was a kid the oldest card I saw was a 1959 Topps, hadn't heard of Goudey, Cracker Jack, or tobacco cards. The kid who had them wouldn't trade them away. This would have been in 1964 or 1965. I recall we wanted new cards, and there's no way that in 1966 we'd have traded 5 1966 Topps for 5 1962 Topps... it might take 15 or 20 1962 cards to get 5 new cards. As kids we were idiots. And as an old guy I think I'm still a bit of an idiot.

OK. I think that Rhodes Scholar from above is the guy who wrote My Dog Skip, a good book for a baseball fan to read, it was made into a movie. If I'm thinking write (pun intended), his name was Willie Morris. Another book of his... Always Stand In Against The Curve.

As I grew up in collecting since a child (age 52 now), vintage has always been 1980 and older.

I've always thought of vintage as pre-1980.

On the card side, I think it's a generally agreed upon consensus that vintage covers from the CDV era through the Topps monopoly, pre 1981. This covers several distinct periods of card distribution, but I think it makes sense as the logical cutoff if we divide card history into only 2 pieces. The end of the Topps monopoly coincides with the period where cards started to be less of a toy and more of an intended collectible, which is the single biggest shift in its history.

With my luck, this is what they guy would have had

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...080&fit=bounds

With the way COVID has stopped time from progressing, 2019 feels like it was 50 years ago. Vintage for me is now pre-2019.

I think that Bob nails it; a good structured, logical answer; for me. anyway.

Ben

"I love baseball history backstory; especially when it involves cards."

I grew up with the SCD definition as well, however I am in the belief that it is well past time for an update. I personally would like to see another decade added to that moving it to 1990.

If we never change our thoughts will “modern” still define cards that are over 50 years old? We are are already 42 years in which is nowhere near a country mile of the age of cards labeled vintage when the vintage & modern designations were created.

When people say "vintage" I say "vintage when?"

Because that is how vintage is used. It is synonymous with circa. Everything is vintage. Vintage 2021 card, vintage 1992 card, vintage 1910 card. Needs a year just like circa. No one would ever say "vintage wine" without mentioning the year.

I see at least several eras:

--19th century
--Pre WWI
--Interwar
--Pre WWII
--Pre 1981
--1981-88
--Shiny Crap

I tried to make this point in class while getting my auctioneers license. Everyone stared at me like dogs trying to do trigonometry.

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For me, when I think of vintage I think of pre-WW II cards.

I know what you mean about England. We are such a new country in comparison. I went various thrift shops there and they had items to sell that were 500 years old! I was thinking these items should be in a museum. They were no big deal to them.