Vintage vs. Antique

[Runscott]

As David pointed out, 'antique' is an easy one;however, 'vintage' is used in a lot of ways by sellers and collectors of a lot of different things (including wine) - most usages being erroneous - so it was difficult to even find a useful definition of the word (that didn't relate to wine).

The best I found for our purposes (from Merriam-Webster): "a period in which something was made or was begun". The problem with its usage generally comes with antiques - you'll see ebay sellers calling something 'vintage' clothing when they really mean 'almost antique', 'almost' being such a variable period as to be useless. Since vintage refers to an actual time period, using the word without indicating a time period as well, is a waste of time. Also, you could say 'vintage 1960s' and be talking about an item that LOOKS like something made during that period, but was actually made last week in China.