Determining what is vintage

[Jwkeen]

Originally Posted by Chuck9788

I've always felt that the Topps 1985 set is final "vintage" year.

The 1985 set included the last player/manager card (Pete Rose), a farewell to Yogi Berra and great HOF veterans (Ryan, Carlton, Fingers, Reggie Jackson). Gary Carter as an Expo, I could go on forever. Anyway, it was the final set that had the "vintage feel". It also passed the torch to the next talented/bad behavior generation (Gooden, McGwire, Clemens, etc..).

Anything after 1989 can not be accepted as vintage anytime soon.

I believe Pete Rose actually had a separate player and manager card in the 86 and 87 sets as well.

[bauce]

For me, anything made after the Topps monopoly has ended will be the end of the Vintage Era and the beginning of the Era Of Gluttony.

[jchcollins]

I would agree with others who have said it largely depends on your age, when you started collecting, and what other associations or memories you have with the hobby. I started collecting out of packs at age 9 in 1986. Within a year or so I had discovered the world of "old" cards through shops, shows, and antique malls (we didn't use the word "vintage" back then...) and I remember considering 1970's cards fairly new because they weren't much older than I was. I thought of 1950's cards (especially issues like '55 Bowman, '55 Topps, '56 Topps) as "old" because of the coloring and size and how cool they were. But a 1973 Topps card? Probably not so much.

These days my children play sometimes with a bunch of my old leftover '86 Topps commons, and I don't know if they have any clue how old those cards are. They do know they aren't particularly valuable, LOL.

[JollyElm]

It's funny, I think the term 'vintage' is a moving target for most of us. When I was little in the summer of '73, my brother came home from his friend's house and showed us all of these crazy old cards he got. In hindsight they were 1966 Topps, as I always remember one of them was Tom Tresh, whose name I giggled at. In other words, these ancient relics of the past were only 7 years old!! We considered them sooooooooooooo frickin' old.

For me, I guess I go with around 1973-1975 and older as being vintage. It just saddens me that cards from the 80's are considered vintage in some circles. Yowza.

[toledo_mudhen]

I would suggest that in 2090 - the mass produced stuff from 1990 will still be sitting around in warehouses and will still not be considered "vintage" by most collectors (if we still have any collectors by then).

For me "vintage" runs from 1945 thru 1980 (I just really like the 1980 Topps set). Prior to 1945 is in a category all it's own -"PreWar"

Prewar takes a special kind of collector - typically with higher budgets than most of us (in order to complete sets anyway)

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by toledo_mudhen

I would suggest that in 2090 - the mass produced stuff from 1990 will still be sitting around in warehouses and will still not be considered "vintage" by most collectors (if we still have any collectors by then).

For me "vintage" runs from 1945 thru 1980 (I just really like the 1980 Topps set). Prior to 1945 is in a category all it's own -"PreWar"

Prewar takes a special kind of collector - typically with higher budgets than most of us (in order to complete sets anyway)

To the last part of your post: I was always a postwar (1950s and 1960s) baseball collector but got restless and gave prewar a try or two. It just isn't for me. Now, I am collecting 1960s football and having a blast! I still think postwar baseball is cool, too.

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