What defines Vintage vs Modern?

[inkstainedruth]

I remember my dad installing seatbelts in the back seat of the '63 Chevy Bel Air sedan we had when I was a little kid (would have been early to mid-1960s I suspect, since it was where we lived when I was little).  

Of course I've also seen stuff in antiques stores (particular vinyl LPs) from when I was in HIGH SCHOOL (mid 1970s)....    And my brain keeps going, "No, I can't be THAT old...."

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PPPR]

39 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

I remember my dad installing seatbelts in the back seat of the '63 Chevy Bel Air sedan we had when I was a little kid (would have been early to mid-1960s I suspect, since it was where we lived when I was little).  

Of course I've also seen stuff in antiques stores (particular vinyl LPs) from when I was in HIGH SCHOOL (mid 1970s)....    And my brain keeps going, "No, I can't be THAT old...."

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Funny, my family's Bel-Air was a '57 in silver/gray with white insets on the fins. Of course, you're that old. Geez, my vinyl collection goes back to the 1910s, before electronic recording. I'm WAY young.

[amper]

One of the things I always find interesting about the enthusiast forums I frequent is that I very often feel like the youngest person in the room. I'll be 55 in one week.

[Estycollector]

My collection consists of pens that are no longer manufactured. I started with 1950's Esterbrooks and worked backwards. The Parkers are no longer made as they were in 1942. Unless a brand is making pens with replaceable ink sacs and levers, that would define vintage. 

[Ron Z]

14 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

my brain keeps going, "No, I can't be THAT old...."

 As I've often said, there is nothing that confirms that you have officially reached geezerdom more than having to sign up for Medicare.   ....that, and going into the Smithsonian and finding the stereo that you had in high school on display.

[Targa]

4 hours ago, Ron Z said:

 As I've often said, there is nothing that confirms that you have officially reached geezerdom more than having to sign up for Medicare.   ....that, and going into the Smithsonian and finding the stereo that you had in high school on display.

Last week at an antique mall, the guy at the front desk asked if we were looking for something in particular.  I said, “Something older than I am but in better condition,”.  They didn’t have anything older, just in better condition.  
But answering the original question …. In my mind at least, the dividing line was a sort of “mass extinction event” of the mid - late 60s and 80s when ball points exploded (sometimes literally in hot cars) and fountain pens faded into history.  The the 80s brought us a renaissance with e.g. the Sheaffer Grand Connaisseur and the new Duofold Centennial.  So my vintage / modern divide is that 80s revival.  I still think of a Parker 75 as vintage, and a 1987 Duofold as modern.

[inkstainedruth]

18 hours ago, PPPR said:

Funny, my family's Bel-Air was a '57 in silver/gray with white insets on the fins. Of course, you're that old. Geez, my vinyl collection goes back to the 1910s, before electronic recording. I'm WAY young.

Yeah, the previous Bel-Air was a '56, blue with the white insets on the fins.  The '63 was I think light brown.

As for feeling/being old?  I once met a woman who was married at the time to a guy who I have a photo of his mom holding him about a month after he was BORN....  And I was going "OMG -- You're married to ALEX????  I can't POSSIBLY be that old!" 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PPPR]

5 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yeah, the previous Bel-Air was a '56, blue with the white insets on the fins.  The '63 was I think light brown.

As for feeling/being old?  I once met a woman who was married at the time to a guy who I have a photo of his mom holding him about a month after he was BORN....  And I was going "OMG -- You're married to ALEX????  I can't POSSIBLY be that old!" 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

The company Dad worked for sent us overseas from the US, and  the Bel-Air went with us. When we returned in '63, the Bel-Air stayed, and he bought a Ford Fairlane in Peacock Blue, which would probably be called turquoise today. Later that year, I got my first FP, which I still have and holds pride of place in my collection.

[kestrel]

14 hours ago, Ron Z said:

 As I've often said, there is nothing that confirms that you have officially reached geezerdom more than having to sign up for Medicare.   ....that, and going into the Smithsonian and finding the stereo that you had in high school on display.

I knew I had reached COF (Certified Old Fart) status the day I walked into a museum and saw a helicopter I flew early in my Navy career on display.  Not just the model but that specific airframe.  All but one of the ships I deployed on have been scrapped.

 

I started teaching when I was 39.  This week the son of one of my former seventh grade students won the district cross country meet.  As a senior.

[GlenV]

This is a funny thread, I only have a couple years until medicare so I guess I'm not vintage yet?

One of my friends thought it was funny I was collecting some ink bottles without ink in them as he said he'd bought

alot of those same bottles from the store..

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I did buy an empty MB "shoe" bottle at an antiques mall but it only cost a buck.... 

I have bought vintage ink but try to get bottles that are at least half full, although I recently discovered that a bottle of vintage Skrip Blue Black is completely dried up.  Haven't had a chance yet to see if I can reconstitute the ink with distilled water or not.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[amper]

The implication of setting a fixed date for "vintage" is that nothing made after that date can ever become "vintage", which is of course a nonsensical idea. Any definition of "vintage" (or "antique") has to be relative for it to have any useful descriptive value.

[GlenV]

5 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Well, I did buy an empty MB "shoe" bottle at an antiques mall but it only cost a buck.... 

I have bought vintage ink but try to get bottles that are at least half full, although I recently discovered that a bottle of vintage Skrip Blue Black is completely dried up.  Haven't had a chance yet to see if I can reconstitute the ink with distilled water or not.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

He bought them new, but he’s in his 90’s. It’s cool to get some vintage ink though

[amper]

On 11/29/2023 at 3:09 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Well, I did buy an empty MB "shoe" bottle at an antiques mall but it only cost a buck..

Geez...I paid about $15 for one on eBay a few months ago, plus shipping. And I was happy to find one that cheap!

[txomsy]

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to buy a new, fully filled bottle? For little more (about ~24-30 EUR, at least in the EU) you can get a new 60ml (2 Oz.?) bottle.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I figured that I could always clean the container out and use other ink in it.  But of course never got around to the "cleaning it out" part....  

OTOH, at that price, it was worth it.   Because sometimes you just have to buy something -- anything -- to scratch that itch of money burning a hole in your pocket.  And buying an empty MB "shoe" bottle for a buck is way better than dropping a lot more money on something I didn't really need to begin with....

 🤷‍♀️

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Nethermark]

On 11/30/2023 at 1:16 AM, amper said:

The implication of setting a fixed date for "vintage" is that nothing made after that date can ever become "vintage", which is of course a nonsensical idea. Any definition of "vintage" (or "antique") has to be relative for it to have any useful descriptive value.

I agree!

 

I guess it differs between products, but for me, pens that are about 40 years old are vintage. But at the same time, the label 'vintage' does not mean that much for me. I buy what I like, antique, vintage or modern.  

[welch]

The implication of "setting a date" is that the fountain pen industry changed decisively at that point. In computers, our marketeers would talk about a "paradigm shift". In 1960, Parker changed the industry with the P-45. There were pressures from ballpoints, as more and more people used them, and there were pressures from the cost of producing and repairing pens with "integral" filling systems. Within the fountain pen industry, the leaders, Sheaffer and Parker, had competed to offer the cleanest filling system. 

 

The cartridge / converter was the cleanest system and the easiest for companies to support. Compare the Parker Super 21 to the 45. 

[Nethermark]

7 hours ago, welch said:

The implication of "setting a date" is that the fountain pen industry changed decisively at that point.

Maybe there is a bit of a difference in perception in different parts of the world. Whereas the c/c system replaced basically all other filling systems in the US and the UK, this was not the case in continental Europe. Especially for German manufacturers the shift came in the 1930s when the piston filling system came to dominate. For lower tier pens the button filling system was typically used. The c/c system didn’t make that big an impact as the piston filling system kept being used and is still very much in use by Pelikan and Montblanc.
 

So for me, being based in mainland Europe, setting a date could equally well mean setting it at 1929, where Pelikan introduced the piston system. 
 

I think that setting a specific date is not the right way to define vintage. It needs to be more flexible. It’s hard to imagine people in 2060 defining all pens after 1960 as modern. 

[amper]

On 12/4/2023 at 5:49 PM, Nethermark said:

Maybe there is a bit of a difference in perception in different parts of the world. Whereas the c/c system replaced basically all other filling systems in the US and the UK, this was not the case in continental Europe. Especially for German manufacturers the shift came in the 1930s when the piston filling system came to dominate. For lower tier pens the button filling system was typically used. The c/c system didn’t make that big an impact as the piston filling system kept being used and is still very much in use by Pelikan and Montblanc.
 

So for me, being based in mainland Europe, setting a date could equally well mean setting it at 1929, where Pelikan introduced the piston system. 
 

I think that setting a specific date is not the right way to define vintage. It needs to be more flexible. It’s hard to imagine people in 2060 defining all pens after 1960 as modern. 

For myself, I bought my first  fountain pen at age 10, in about 1978, a Sheaffer No Nonsense calligraphy set, which is obviously a cartridge pen. I didn't even know there were other filling systems, other than those on technical pens (of which I was familiar with Staedtler Mars, Koh-I-Noor, Rotring, and Mecanorma), until 1991, when I went to work for a Pelikan dealer and started using Pelikan piston fillers. So, not being 80+ years old, I have no memory of this supposed period in which cartridge pens supplanted most other pens. I have been using piston fill pens since 1991-1992.

I never heard of anything other than a cartridge, converter, or integral piston until much later, because why would I, unless I somehow had developed an interest in vintage fountain pens in my 20s or 30s—which I obviously did not, and still have not, having just turned 55.