Defining "Vintage"

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Posted By: ErikV.

All,

The word "vintage". In a broad sense, I suppose it could encompass the pre-1900 through 1960 period, but I'm curious as what fellow vintage card collectors thoughts are on the meaning of the word in terms of card collecting. Could it more accurately describe the:

a) Pre-1900 period
b) 1900-1919 Deadball Era period
c) the 1920's
d) the 1930's
e) the 1940's
f) the 50's and 60's
g) a combination of two or more.

Any thoughts?

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Posted By: rich

Hi, just my .02 worth, but I think vintage can be encompasses through the 1960's. (for now) I was going to say any non glossy card can be considered vintage, but that is a stretch because of the 70's and most 80's)

However looking at it that way, in about 10-20 years we will have to reclassify vintage because by then the 70's and 80's will be considered vintage.

So in conclusion, for today 7/12/04, I believe that vintage should and could encompass the pre 1900's - 1969 era of baseball cards. (with 60-69 being classified as a "neo vintage" sort of card.
again just my .02

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Posted By: Adam J. Moraine

I would have to say, a combination of two or more. Preferably, ALL of your multiple choices are considered "VINTAGE". Just my own opinion.

Adam

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Posted By: steve k

The word "vintage" in baseball card collecting can depend on one's perspective. To a ten year old kid, "vintage" truly can mean cards from the 1980s. I think "vintage" should mean a combination of the card's age and before the era when cards were "over produced" which started happening during parts of the 1970s. Of course there is the story about a boatload of 1952 Topps cards being dumped in the ocean because they were "over produced" so that term also depends on one's perspective. Usually though, I think for most baseball card collectors, "vintage" usually means pre-1970 cards. In this Vintage Baseball Cards Forum, the "vintage" topic is pre-WW2 baseball cards.

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Posted By: Dan Mckee

Vintage means pre WWII to me. Topps and Bowman are not vintage.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

In this forum, it is definitely considered to be PRE-WWII.

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Posted By: Joe P.

An example, I'm 73 years old and having been born in 1931, anything from 1919 and earlier would fall into the vintage category.
I would imagine that anyone that was born in the '70's might look at the '50's and '60's as vintage, and rightly so, .... there are days that I feel that way.

What we have on this board is mostly a collection of aficionados that are very interested in the early history of the game.
We're talking about collectors and/or investors that are drawn to the memorabilia and images from the 1840's Town Ball period, right on through the deadball period of the early 20th century.
1955 is vintage, but like I said, it's all relative.

Bring on whatever vintage level you carry with you, but be prepared to get rid of your cell phone, and trade it in for an Alexander Graham Bell model.
The type that you hang on the wall - looks like a well carved Victorian wooden box with bells up on top - an apparatus in the center of the box that you can talk into - a cylinder on the left hand side that you can take off the cradle, put to your ear and hear the other person - on the right you'll find a little handle that you turn to crank up the operator and have her connect you to the party line.

Folks, get yourself ready, because we're going out and take the trolley to the Polo Grounds.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I would give ANYTHING to be able to go out and catch a trolley to the Polo Grounds ... and buy a straw hat to go with my suit and tie ... and watch the Giants play the Pirates ... and to sit close enough to the dugouts to hear John McGraw and Honus Wagner raz each other.

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Posted By: Joe P.

Hal, like I said it's all relative.
The first game that my pop took me to was at the Polo Grounds in 1944.
It was between the Jints and the Pirates.
No Honus or McGraw, but my dad knew a fellow Cuban by the name of Adolfo Luque, then a coach with the Jints.
It was during the war years.
Here are the rosters.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=1944&t=NY1

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=1944&t=PIT

Life can be unreal.
I just looked at the Pirate roster and saw a familiar name Pete Coscarart.
In 1969, I bought a view property from him in San Marcus, Ca.
He was then a realtor in Escondido, Ca.
Life is beautiful and full of the unexpected.
Until this moment, I didn't realize that I saw Pete play at my first game.

Joe

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Posted By: hankron

With photographs, vintage technically means that the photo was made soon after the photograph was shot. So one can say "vintage 1994 photo," meaning the photo was made in 1994 and not later.

In that sense, it's reasonable for an ebay seller of a 1974 toy to say, "It's vintage and not a modern repro."

Other than that, I accept that different collectors have different definitions of what is vintage. Presumably, the seller is going to give a year for the baseball card, so his definition is window dressing.

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Posted By: Mike (18colt)

Which major leaguer debuted in the majors the earliest? If Rickey Henderson gets another shot and leaves Newark for the majors, then we're looking at what, 1979? Perhaps vintage could be defined as everything before the earliest year an active major leaguer began his career? Thus, if it were Henderson as the barometer, vintage would be before 1979?

Personally, though, I think if you go back 2 generations before you, it's "vintage".

Just my 2 cents.

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Posted By: leon

Vintage is obviously in the eye of the beholder, as to what years. For me it's pre WWII because that's what I collect. I have heard that anything over 20 years old is an antique too...ouch......regards

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Posted By: hankron

The traditional standard for collectables and art is 'vintage' is 25 years or older and 'antique' is 100 years old or older .... Whether or not I agree with the standard, I would be more likely to call a 1909 T206 antique rather than vintage.

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Posted By: jay behrens

in the world of antiques, for something to called an "antique", it has to be 100 years old. The lone exception is cars, which only have to be 50 years old. Don't ask me why. I have no clue. My 1973 Datsun 240z is the first car from the 1970s to be offically classified a classic, but it's still not an antique.

I sold toys for a number of years and the term vintage is used mainly to differentiate an original from later reproduction or special edition produced years later.

For me, vintage baseball cards have always been pre-Bowman/Topps cards.

Jay

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Posted By: warshawlaw

other definitions don't apply. The split should be based on watershed events in card production history. I see the following potential demarcation points for vintage:

1. World War II: Card production essentially ceased during the war, which creates a logical bright line split that most in this forum follow.
2. 1973: The final year of Topps issuing cards in series. Up through 1973, the major card sets are a MAJOR pain in the butt to assemble because of the short prints. After, not.
3. 1981: After the antitrust ruling against Topps opened the market to Donruss and Fleer. I think it is safe to say that nothing made after 1980 is viewed as vintage by anyone on this board.

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Posted By: Julie

have always seemed like a logical break point to me--no cards for a while. In the '30s, every time i walked into the bathroom, almost, my mother would be washing photographs in the bathtub (don't know what was wrong with the darkroom). She didn't let me use her Leica till I was 12 (1947). Another good reason for the war years to be a break point, because I've always been very interested in photography, and couldn't participate till after the war.

The margerine with the dark orange spot in the center, balls of tinfoil, running boards.

Whatever's "vintage" to you is vintage. If baseball went any further back, I'd be collecting that.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I am proud to be able to post on a board where the members ponder the meaning of "vintage" in Vintage Baseball Cards". I however, am still working on understanding and in some cases swallowing what the "baseball card" portion of this term means.

Specifically, if I understand correctly: I do not have to accept comic trade cards as baseball cards, bur post cards, playing cards (even the ten of clubs), other game cards which show a player, as well as flip movies count. But not blankets, pins nor stickers. And yes to entire back panels of cereal boxes which show a baseball player, as well as ice cream cup lids, various discs, and products of Larry Fritsch. Now bottle caps do not count unless they have an insert on which a player is shown, also AAA certified book pictures do not count, nor does stamps nor coins which show a player. Products such as Ray-O-Print, Journal American Contests and the NJ State lottery tickets may be cards, in addition, E91s, matchbooks, 1957 Swift Franks, even Gould statue holders are cards. Fortunately baseball bucks are not cards, but Scrapps and other cut outs may be.

Please provide any correction, clarification or expansion as you may feel necessary.

Thank you.

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Posted By: hankron

I think it's a non issue. Whether one labels a 1975 Topps vintage or modern, it's still from 1975.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

(and David has a good point!)

Lawson's game cards, 1884. Harper's woodcuts, --1890. Tobin Lithographs (but can list them under trade cards, I guess). A35 (Goodwin Round Album) pages, which are very frequently sold singly, 1889. N301 Mayos (yawn) and the "Artistic Series"--(those nice die-cuts of generic players in fielding positions--and a batter, much nicer than the N301s).For someone with a small collection to begin with, this is real deprivation!

And where's that Copper Plate thing, that Bob Lemke says has a Hoy in it?...

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Posted By: Jason

Joe and Julie-

Does that mean you two are classified as vintage? I woul estimate anything being pre 1954 is vintage.

Jason

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Posted By: warshawlaw

First of all, I say a card is an item that is meant to display flat. I'd not give card status to flip books, for example. Ditto for booklets. Goodwin albums are darned nice. Darned nice albums, not darned nice cards.

Second, among flat items, if it isn't made of wood pulp to a significant degree (notice I cleverly did not say "paper" or "cardboard"), it isn't a card. That excludes coins, felts, blankets, leathers, and those shiny plastic pieces of **** that the modern collectors buy.

Third, if it is a flat and is made of wood pulp but had a different primary purpose, it isn't a card. This excludes tickets, stickers (sorry Charlie, Star-Cal made toys that are fun to collect, not cards), entire candy boxes (Darby) and photographs. Now that we've established that Darby's are not cards, kindly send all of your Darby's to me.

Finally, if it is a flat and it is made of wood pulp and it has a primary purpose to exist as a card, it is a card, whether it came in a pack, on the side of a box of candy, on a milk carton, or on the package wrapper for some really rank hot dogs, whether it came from a nice clean pack or had to be cut away from others (W cards), separated at the perforation (ARCO 1968 cards), shot out of an arcade machine (Exhibits), pulled from a container of poison (T cards), etc.

Wasn't that easy? Shouldn't I be king?

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Posted By: Julie

downright ANTIQUE!

Adam, all you're saying (and you're wrong about A35s, because the pages are most frequently sold AS CARDS, not the entire album), is that the things you mention are not CARDS, but collectibles....so what? Does that in any way make them less vintage?

"Pulled from a container of poison"...it's been two years now.

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Posted By: jay behrens

His point is that they are not cards. As for A35 pages, that is exactly what they are, pages. Taking apart and an A35 no makes a their pages a card than does Roy Huff's tearing apart a flip book and calling the individual pages cards.

Besides, I don't think anyone here thinks any less of something because it is not a card. We have a love for all things baseball from it's early days.

Jay

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

They are very thick--NOT like paper torn out of a magazine.
Roy Huff--gimme a break!They also have card-like information on the back: the pictured player or players' record for the previous year. If Goodwin had not considered the possibility that people would separate the "pages," they would have made it impossible without damage to each. The reason so many are damaged is that the album was designed to be opened like a fan, and everyone tried to open it like a book. In the Halper auction, weren't all pages from a single album sold separated, with the gromit included in the lot?



Heck, I don't really care what you call them; they're beautiful, and i enjoy collecting them one at a time.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Rastionalize it all you want, it's still a page from a book. It Goodwin had intended the pages to be sold seperately, they would have done so. The reason dealers break up these albums is purely greed because people are stupid enough to pay a premium for a page rather than own the whole thing. It's kind of like selling of a book charter by charter. Sure, they might be interesting in and of themselves, but the whole is what makes them great. Or, I go step lower and compare it to those lovely plastic cards with bits of Babe Ruth's jersey or bat. It's just not the same thing when you don't have the whole thing. Something whole was destroyed in order to satisfy the greed of someone.

Jay

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

This is like the guy who bought Henry Wright's old scorebooks and is tearing them apart to sell them one page at a time. Sacrilege!

I have an extra copy of Henry Chadwick's 1868 "The Game of Baseball" ... so I wonder if I could profit from tearing out the pages and selling them ONE at a TIME?

Or better yet ... like the Ruth jersey ... selling them ONE SQUARE INCH at a time.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

The album pages are superb collectibles and superb booklets when they are complete, but they are not cards. "Card-like"? Exactly. Card-LIKE, not cards. I had not thought of Uncle Roy's laughing academy when I was writing my observations, but the guys are right--there is no philosophical difference between Roy's dismemberment of a booklet and busting up a Goodwin album. And I say this as someone who has collected Goodwin album pages and will do so in the future and has collected leaves from 19th century oversized books (Billy Edwards' rare 1895 oversized book of profiles of boxers is commonly taken apart for the beautiful 11 x 14 portraits, for example; Joe Choynski's hangs on the wall of my office--got it at the 2000 National for $5 from some moron who thought he was a wrestler).

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Posted By: leon

When the album pages are taken apart they COULD be put back together with little or no damage. A cut up Ruth jersey or Cobb bat couldn't....regards

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Posted By: Julie

most people collect the pages because that's the way they find them, and I'm sure that goes for the dealers as well. I can't imzagine Terry K tearing a Goodwin Album apart because he thought he would get more money for the individual pages; an intact album is a rare find. I had 2-3 before I knew how many were IN the album, although I had a pretty good idea of who was on them all.

It sort of rankles to be told that a beautiful thing you own, over 8" in diameter with a background as white as a sheet is like a Roy Huff tear-up.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Those are abominations, both silly and gross. I'll never forget the first time I saw a bat card. The stories of hucksters selling supposed hunks of the cross, the holy grail, the ark of the covenant, etc., came right to mind and I decided that the whole thing was unseemly and not something I'd personally get involved in collecting. Not that I have anything against the people who want to do it; it is their money and they can spend it as frivolously as they like. In fact, I urge all people who bid on the cards I like to immediately shift all of their collecting energies to amassing recently issued cards with bits of jersey, bat, ball, base, hair, scrotum and whatever else they're sticking on cards now.

I was referring only to the Goodwin albums and similar paper items that are readily taken apart into their individual leaves and sold as such. Beautiful, yes. Desirable, yes. Valuable, yes. Cards, no.

Julie, don't get miffed, your leaves are still great items, they're just not cards. I realize that you exalt Terry K, Mark M and certain other of your personal card gurus, but I have to chuckle a bit over your assertion that Terry would not pull apart a Goodwin album if the parts were worth a lot more than the whole, and I would not blame him a bit for doing so. He's in business, not in the museum or preservation game; as you said yourself, the whole albums are valuable.

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Posted By: Julie

round album apart to get more dough for it, I think he'd faint. My "gurus" are mainly Ben, actually.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

(Obscure SNL reference for those of you lucky enough to have watched in the 1970's).

I am not suggesting that Terry took apart a Goodwin album. What I am saying is that if we had a market where the leaves were worth considerably more individually than the album as a whole, I do not believe that he would keep the item intact out of some sense of service, because he is a dealer in business to make money on the purchase and resale of these items.

See, the difference is that you and I love these items while a dealer cannot love them without going broke. Speaking as one who used to be a dealer, if you want to sell these items profitably, you have to treat them as commodities, not as something more. I could not handle it (I fell in love way too often with the things I purchased for inventory), so I stopped dealing.

Now, the vulgarians who shred bats and so forth to make those silly cards are very different than someone who sells leaves from a rare publication. Those sliver cards don't resemble the original at all. They might as well stick a chunk of plywood on there for all the resemblance it has to a bat. I do like the autographed cut cards, though. Nice way to get a Ruth, Cobb, etc. in a format that displays well (I've always thought checks, documents, etc., looked a little tacky).

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

O.K. I DOUBT that Mark Macrae has ever handled a Goodwin Round Album (NOT doubt that he has one--he may very well have one. He has many great 19th century cards), but he doesn't sell PRIMARILY 19th =century stuff, so his chances of selling a Goodwin Album are rather slight. I have bought a dandy Harper's woodcut from him, and it MAY have been him who sold me a beautifully trimmed Yum Yum of Mickey Welch.

But as far his being a "guru," is concerned, he is. Absolutely, THE. most. knowledgeable. dealer. in the business. For ANY century. Terry K. may know more about obscure 19th century issues, as may Barry Sloate, but otherwise: any question you want an answer to about baseball cards, Mark Macrae has it. It is really incredible.
As for his doing something so destructive as tearing apart a Goodwin Album, it just isn't credible. He loves baseball cards (or WHATEVER we are calling that thing); he would NEVER do anything like that! His own collection is magnificent. (Don't have to worry about him reading this, because he's already driving back east, stopping many places along the way, to the National.)

With Terry K, I have more concrete proof. Terry sold me my first Scrapps, almost 20 years ago--but then, only very occasionally. People would bring Terry their complete sets, and he would always sell therm AS COMPLETE SETS--no matter how I yelped that all i wanted was an O'Neill, a Caruthers. He was always patient with me, but he would NOT take a set apart!

In case you hadn't noticed, Mark and Terry came out on top in the VCBC dealers contest.

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Posted By: jay behrens

It's always easy to point out the exception to the rule. I'd like to think I know Macrae pretty well and doubt he would disassemble an album, but the other 99.9% of the dealers in the country would. I can't speak about TIK since I've never had dealings with or got to know them when I was more active in the hobby.

Julie, I've seen the entire album, and it is a fabulous vintage 19th century item. All of the Goodwin and A&G albums are, but the individual pages are not a card in any way, shape or form. Many of the blank backed/skinned A&Gs you see are actually cut from album pages.

Jay

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

1) pages from the Goodwin Round Album being compared to a Roy Huff cut out. NOTHING has been cut, for one thing.
2) Implication that either Knouse or Macrae would disassemble a Goodwin Round Album for Profit.

As far as the pages of the Round Album are concerned, you can call them anything you like. And how did skinned G and Bs get into the discussion anyway?

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Posted By: jay behrens

Julie, I don't think anyone compared them to Roy Huff cut outs. I do remember comparing them to pages removed from a flip book.

As for TIK and Macrae, no one ever claimed that they disassembled albums. The discussion was the general comment that dealers will disassemble these albums to maximize profits. It was a broad, general statement that you took personally on behalf of someone else. Sort of like saying boats float. A fairly good geneal statement, but pointing out the Titantic sank doesn't change the fact that boats float. There are exceptions to ever general statement. That's pretty much a given. Pointing out those expections will not change basic truth.

Jay

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

It's quite specific.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

the last para. of my last post was about cutting up bats, etc.

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Posted By: Julie

as if you didn't know ("poor little lady; she's old, and doesn't think very well").

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Posted By: steve k

There should be a new VBC Forum rule; "No picking on little old ladies" :)

That doesn't include Julie though because she is not old.

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Posted By: Julie

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Posted By: Pcelli60

1969 Topps Mickey Mantle is the vintage cut-off mark- for now.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

in 1964--but I don't know ANYONE else who keeps even '50s stuff in Mylar. Great stuff, though.