What defines Vintage vs Modern?

[ParramattaPaul]

For me, any pen made before 1950 is vintage.  That is a personal opinion and nothing more.

[gone]

I think "vintage" is not just about age. To be of a particular vintage, it's needs to be clearly from that vintage.

In other words, it needs to have a design and/or features which allow you to say when it was made.
 

Just being old, makes it an old pen. Writing with it makes it a used pen. Neither affect whether it is vintage or a generic blend. 

[ParramattaPaul]

15 minutes ago, Prawnheed said:

I think "vintage" is not just about age. To be of a particular vintage, it's needs to be clearly from that vintage.

In other words, it needs to have a design and/or features which allow you to say when it was made.
 

Just being old, makes it an old pen. Writing with it makes it a used pen. Neither affect whether it is vintage or a generic blend. 

Isn't vintage defined as being of a certain 'old' age?

 

Collectibles, cars for instance, are classed by their age as modern, vintage, and antique after all.

[gone]

20 minutes ago, ParramattaPaul said:

Isn't vintage defined as being of a certain 'old' age?

 

Collectibles, cars for instance, are classed by their age as modern, vintage, and antique after all.

Well if you look at the word itself it comes from Latin via French and refers to the grape harvest. The vintage of a wine is the year in which the grapes were harvested. Climatic influences convey particular characteristics to the wine which allow the vintage to be identified.

 

The "old" connotations come from the fact that wind which is aged develops further character.

 

The primary meaning is not "old", rather that it comes from a single harvest (year and vineyard) rather than a blend, solera, or other method. 
 

Applying it to pens, or other objects, to just mean "old" seems to be missing the point. 
 

[ParramattaPaul]

Yes, as an occasional consumer of wine I am aware of the word's association with wine. Yet, the word has other meanings when we disassociate it from winemaking.

[txomsy]

Even so, this misses -in my (and only my) opinion- the main point.

 

You do not talk of a wine "month, day and year". It doesn't make much sense when applied to wine. First, all grapes will be pooled (wither at pressing or when the juice is set in fermenters), so the maximal precision you get is the year. When talking of mass-produced items, something similar happens, they are all made with the same machinery and to the same standards -while they are being made-, a similar assumption to what happens with wine from a single harvest. So, I think that for mass-produced items it makes more sense to talk of the model.

 

You do talk of wine harvest but make a distinction: it is used to distinguish a good year (whose grapes led to better wines) from a bad one. Which in itself implies you compare two different years/productions. But even in the same year a producer may use some juice for gourmet and some juice for table wine, some may be produced quickly and some may go through more or less longer fermentation processes in differing containers. Just like you can have different variants or versions of a model with different qualities.

 

Now, if we assume that, then a pen which is still in production with the same quality and properties cannot be called "vintage" even if it was made (say) 40 years ago. It is the still the same "harvest" as it is now, so it doesn't make sense to qualify it specially. If properties change and one is no longer made, then you can talk of their different production periods.

 

When you use the "vintage" you do it not only to specify the harvest year, you also implicitly assume that you are referring not to the low quality production, but reserve its use for the high quality wines or produce, because it is implicitly assumed that there is no interest in the low quality ones.

 

Thus, I think that the use of vintage also conveys a meaning of the item carrying a measure of quality and goodness. It is not enough to state "this is from year X" or "this is model X", to qualify as vintage. The term is not applied to all wines or items, it should be used for good ones.

 

And it is further assumed that the connoisseur knows which ones (makers, variants, grapes) are typically good and which aren't. That a wine is from year X does not mean anything if it is actually vinegar (although in that case it may make sense to speak of the vintage of the vinegar). That a wine was fermented longer or shorter does not make sense if you don't consider its qualities: some wines will go bad after a few years, some may last decades. A Beaujolais nouveau 10 years old will most likely be vinegar by now, no matter which year, harvest, vintage it is or how it was stored. A Sherry or Topkaji close to 100 years may be excellent depending on how it was made and if it was correctly preserved. Same for grape variants, brands, processes...

 

The year of production does not make you "special" in itself. The harvest or model is not enough. Some wine and pen makers have a reputation for making great wines (Vega Sicilia, Montblanc), some denominations have a reputation for paying special attention to quality (Bourdeaux, piston fillers), some models are known for their consistent quality, etc... but even so, connoisseurs know the same brand can produce first, second or third tier wines or models. They know a first tier (e.g. Montblanc 149) is normally better than a third tier (Montblanc 342G), and they also know that a Montblanc, even a third tier, is better than some other brands, even their first tier.

 

Vintage then, means that something is old, and is normally applied to further qualify specific wines or pens: e.g. a pre-WWII Montblanc often had gold nibs, a WWII Montblanc had scarce access to gold and most often would use non-gold nibs, a pre '60s Montblanc usually had flexible nibs (needs more qualification) in steel or gold, a 60's-70's was usually responsive, a post-70's was usually a nail, a post 2000's was often (not always) a gaudy LE... The harvest/vintage (and the accurate dating is not so important) is what helps you decide, among the high quality usually associated to Montblanc, if the range of models (e.g. first-tier pre WWII) is more or less interesting to your taste. Same reasoning applies to specific model runs, 

 

Of course, there is a lot of interest from low quality producers to state the harvest/vintage so unwary buyers think that since a vintage/harvest is stated the product must be in the "league" of "vintage-qualified" products and therefore assume it must be very good (the seller makes no statement of quality -so no liability-, only lets you assume off your ignorance).

 

This has worsened with /mostly of Chinese origin) low quality production: (don't know why, I want to suppose it is a cultural or translation problem) sellers remove the "-lookalike" part from their product descriptions and you get zillions of products that are "vintage" (-looking) produced yesterday, "leather" (-looking) in PU,  <insert your favorite FP brand here> (-looking) fake pens, "professional" (-looking), etc...

 

Finally, "vintage" means "harvest". You do not say this wine is from harvest and this pen is from a period. You say this wine is from this period (year) and this pen is from this period (production-time range).

 

Then, using only "vintage" in isolation can only be meaningful to imply "this wine is from a specially good harvest" or "this pen model is from a specially good quality production period"

 

In short: vintage is about setting a product in a production period to better qualify (in a generic way) the quality of an implied good product. As such it is useful to the connoisseur, and of limited use for unaware buyers (though it may increase their chances). The generic term only makes sense as a shortcut for "this product is of a non-longer produced, specially good quality, run"

 

Personally, I believe that setting it to just a date (or moving date) totally misses the point, and only benefits scammers. Knowledgeable users will typically reserve it for qualifying known good pens. 

 

I set my "date" on the 60's because pens before then have qualities I like, and pens afterwards have very limited interest for me -so they all look similarly uninteresting-. But that's my definition.

 

[Olya]

Definition of "modern": the latest, up-to-date, recent, current, contemporary, existing in the present, new, present-day.

 

An item made in the 1970s does not fit the definition of "modern".

 

Indeed, the example above I thought of, too: No one in 2045 is going to call a pen from 1965 modern.

 

World wars are not a timestamp to differentiate between modern, vintage or antique. In that case the world has stood still since 1945?

 

Setting a cut-off period to a system invented is also silly, like the example above, pistons were also a significant change in the pen world and why the snobbery towards c/c I don't understand, same as I don't understand the argument that a c/c pen cannot be vintage??? Is a 100 year old pen in the future not going to be an antique, either?? Young forever and then suddenly a great-grandpen?

 

Ageing is a privilege, though yes, it does hurt to realize that 2003 is already 20 years ago!!!!! Doesn't change the fact that time has passed, items have aged the same as people.

 

I go by the cut-off mark of approx. 25 years to call anything vintage and items younger than 25 years, but no longer in production have special status as well.

 

Manufactured goods and digestable consumables cannot be compared.

 

The question is simple and I cannot believe the discussion and disagreement it has spawned or that some refuse to call 50 or 70 year old things vintage, because of.. reasons!

 

Living beings and things age and they need age-markers (like toddler, teen, adult or modern, vintage, antique).

[txomsy]

Wish it were so simple.

 

While vintage is a term defined by reference to a clearly defined different field, modern is less well defined.

 

In common use, it is something made now (with some leeway). More properly, historians will define it as the period from the end of the Middle Ages to -depending on sources- 1945 (end of WWII) or now.

 

That would make all fountain pens "modern", except those post-1945 which could further be qualified as  "modern contemporary". With the term "modern" having been coined around 1585 to describe the "dawning" of a new era. So may be we are at the dawn of a new, the "contemporary" era?

 

Well, only time will tell. But I would surmise that the term "modern" is ambiguous enough and at mostly may be defined by limiting it to the "contemporary" section of the "modern" era.

 

I do not think anyone will argue that the c/c system is not modern. In common parlance it is the modern (contemporary) standard. And will continue being so until something new comes and phases it out.

 

Back on topic, we do not distinguish between modern and vintage cartridges or converters: they are still in production, are basically the same and pretty much exchangeable. But we can make a distinction between modern crappy or modern good models and old crappy or old good (vintage) models of specific fountain pens (even if all of them use the same c/c filling system).

 

Beyond that, we should keep in mind that "crappy" and "good" have a non-negligible subjective component (but also many objective variables), and therefore -to our disgrace- "vintage" has too. I say "to our disgrace" because that opens the door to opportunists claiming that their convenience definition of "good" is as valid as anyone else irrespective of any objective criteria.

 

[ParramattaPaul]

I will ask thins. 

 

A hypothetical car collector owns a 1910 Ford Model T, a 1930 Ford Model A, a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, a 1965 Ford Mustang., and a 2023 Ford Escape.  Is the Model T classed as an 'Antique car', the Model A as a Vintage car', the Thunderbird and Mustang as something else, and the Escape as a "modern car'?  They -- all Ford motorcars, serving the same purpose in much the same way -- were all made by Ford Motor Company in essentially the same factory at some time during a 113 year period?  Tha answer is yes according to the American Collectors Community website.  SEE HERE: Classic vs. Antique vs. Vintage Cars: What Is The Difference? | American Collectors Insurance

 

What I suggest, as I did in a previous discussion here about the same question, is that the same or similar classifications can be applied to fountain pens,

 

FYI:  the Thunderbird  and Mustang are classed as Classic cars.

[welch]

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. 

 

There must be some reason behind determining what is a vintage fountain pen. 1960 seems to be the turning point, the point when pen companies stopped competing to offer the cleanest filling system. If German companies adopted the piston system in the 1920s, and then stopped offering new filling ideas, then it means that German companies had already stopped fountain pen innovation. They had reached a peak, a system that the German-speaking market considered the best. However, I can think only of Pelikan, Montblanc, and Lamy as continuing to offer piston pens on through the competition with ballpoints. 

 

However, Germany was a very small market compared to the English-speaking market. While Onoto offered piston-fillers in the K-pens, The Big Four US makers were reduced to Sheaffer and Parker, and both shifted to cartridge/converters through the 1960s. The Onoto Ks were a good idea, but seem to have been the final serious offering from Onoto/DLR. (No, I don't have the Onoto Book, so I don't know what they released in their last years). Japanese and now Chinese pens seem to adopted c/c filling systems.   

 

 

[txomsy]

The car analogy is also useful: what makes their cutoff date?

 

I would say that one can very readily tell the difference between pre- and post- by naked eye. The design and engine of cars hasn't changed that dramatically since... It is still the same combustion engine with different improvements, the same aerodynamic shape with some variation...

 

But "recently" we are seeing a switch to different shapes and electric engines and extras. In ten years a car with no electronic extras, a fully mechanical car of the 70s will become "vintage": a car that is incredibly more resilient than by-then-contemporary cars, with design lines more angular and clearly distinguishable, with no extras, where everything is mechanical, anyone can understand and repair with a bit of interest withut a master in computer science... In twenty years, all current cars will be absolute rarities, cars that were not fully electronic, with an almost unbreakable mechanical engine (the computer or electronics may fail, but many modern engines are beyond the fail-in-your-life point) and where only sensors or cabling need to be changed and whose on board computer is so simple that an emulator will by-then be built by an AI in a few minutes.

 

The hard-line set by car collectors will necessarily have to change. Some collectors will still maintain it at the '60s, some at the point when electronics took over control of the car, some when the automatic gear was introduced...

 

I think (and its only a belief, you will certainly disagree) that, similarly, each one has to define their interests and define their own variant of "vintage" and the rest of categories.

 

Even for cars: in the link above they clearly state there is no standard and each state in the US has its own, and that the cutoff line depends on model and brand.

 

For me, YMMV, trying to set a hard line (other than a personal one) is only possible as the result of vested interest lobbying hidden behind a shield of "standardization" to exploit the ignorance of those who want a quick buck with no effort. It would be like saying "any wine before 2020 is good" or "the older the wine the better", two generic assertions often found, and which anyone with knowledge knows are totally, utterly and absolutely false. In other words, from my personal and isolated point of view, it would be a scam stunt. But that's only my opinion.

 

I think others in this forum have often said it more clearly: you should do your due diligence, you cannot expect others to do it for you for free, and if you don't, then don't complain of the consequences. 

[Olya]

On cars: The very link and source from above says:

 

"Here is how you can tell if your car is antique, classic or vintage by the year it was manufactured:

• Vintage Car: Manufactured between 1919 and 1930. Either a “survivor” or restored in conformance to the original manufacturer specifications
• Antique Car: Manufactured 1975 or earlier (>45 years old). Either a “survivor” or restored in conformance to the original manufacturer specifications
• Classic Car: Manufactured 2000 or earlier (>20 years old)

Aside from age, you can also determine your car’s classification by looking at its historic status."

 

https://americancollectors.com/articles/vintage-vs-classic-vs-antique-cars/

 

The cut-off isn't a decade or set time-period, it isn't a specific innovation or design, it is AGE. Anything older than 20 years is a "classic car", what most would call "vintage" anyway, no regular person on the street is going to specifically differentiate between "NOS", "vintage", "antique" or any other designation for anything, except those in the hobby and even then, as far as I can see with this discussion, it's again only some people who insist on this or that.

 

Every year in British newspapers there's a fun article titled "Which Car is Becoming a Classic/Vintage Car This Year?"

[Nethermark]

2 hours ago, Olya said:

The cut-off isn't a decade or set time-period, it isn't a specific innovation or design, it is AGE

Precisely! 
 

An item being vintage or antique has only to do with age. Not quality either. Only age. 

[inkstainedruth]

The comparison of "vintage" cars vs. pens is now making me think of a guy I used to work with.  He restored a Chevy Corvette, and took it to some car show, and told me he was TOTALLY PO'd by coming in THIRD in that category -- he apparently got dinged for having a spot of oil (!) on his exhaust pipe.  He said the guys who came in first and second place?  They both brought their cars in on FLATBEDS, whereas *he* DROVE his car to the show....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[RobNYC]

In most collecting circles (outside of pens) the generally held standard is 50 years = Vintage, 100+ years = Antique, of course without unanimous agreement. I think that maybe the best answer is what these terms mean to YOU.

[Wahl]

15 hours ago, RobNYC said:

In most collecting circles (outside of pens) the generally held standard is 50 years = Vintage, 100+ years = Antique, of course without unanimous agreement. I think that maybe the best answer is what these terms mean to YOU.

 

Great, so most of my pens are not vintage any more, they are antiques  !

[RobNYC]

5 hours ago, Wahl said:

 

Great, so most of my pens are not vintage any more, they are antiques  !

If going by that standard, perhaps,