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How Far We Can Define A Pen As Vintage!


H1N

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More appropriately --

I want to buy that pen, but it's old and used

I want to sell that pen, it's vintage and tested.

:thumbup:

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Why not call dip pens vintage and FP's modern?

 

 

Dacapo!

 

 

 

You can go as far back as the Roman Empire. Recently a Delta was discovered in the ruins of Pompei

Oh yea. I have that one - plus the one discovered in the Colosseum. I guess archeology pays off after all. :)

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That's exactly what I was thinking. After 40 years a pen should be declared vintage

 

As long as we do it at a ceremony with excellent food and a little Champagne, count me in! But no speeches.

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I'm trying to find some results from the discussion till this moment,

can we say!

A specific model Pen (good quality- non available in markets)

- More than 35 years old is vintage

- More than 25 years old with some solid gold is vintage

- more than 65 years old is antique

Edited by H1N
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  • 10 months later...

With resurrection of the "ten favourite vintage pens" thread I thought we could kick this one up the ladder as well. This arose because I saw a 1980s pen included as vintage, where I would consider such a pen a modern classic. In any case, surely a 30 year old pen still in production in the same form is not the same class as a 90 year-old pen which uses technologies no longer current, other than both being fountain pens?

 

Basically, I go with a system based on that for cars, which defines mostly and quite arbitrarily by year of manufacture, which at least saves on classification arguments. So, I would use:

antique or veteran - pre-1920

vintage - 1920-1940

classic - 1940-1960

modern classic - 1960+ (remember, the Lamy 2000 emerged in that decade).

 

The method's main defect is that, as time passes, you need new categories as more modern pens get older.

 

The alternative is by age rather than date. The problem with that it does not offer distinction, and to the extent it does (e.g. 25+, 50+, 100+, or even a simple single 75 break point) then pens are constantly changing label so the term is almost instantly meaningless. One day, the Lamy Studio will be old. Should it be described with the same term as a Waterman 12?

 

Any of us can choose what we please of course. Alternatively, we could run a poll on some labels and cutoffs then see whether it gradually embeds.

 

 

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I take the Parker 75 Queen Elizabeth (arguably the first Limited Edition pen) as a threshold to define what is vintage and what is not: its release in 1977 marks the beginning of an important shift towards the high-end luxury market, and the transformation of most FP manufacturers from "tool to write" makers to "status symbol" makers.

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That is using only one division, between vintage and modern. Do you not see benefit in having more classifications than that? I certainly see a bunch of major eras for pens, which I think it could be helpful to label as a shorthand reference.

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What's the newest pen you'd still call vintage? This is where it really gets subjective. I'd use the term for Targas and No Nonsense (or anything before 1980), and I'm certain there will be those who disagree.

 

And don't get me started on people who use the word "retro" for an item that's genuinely from the past. Grrrrrrrr...

James

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I guess it comes down to how one defines the term 'vintage' outside of it original usage.

 

Vintage to me means either of a particular age, or a particular level of quality, sometimes both. So, it is quite possible to have vintage 1980, vintage 1990 and so on. More so when if there is some specific characteristic that ties the item to that time period.

 

Dunno really.

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That (vintage year) is using the term as one does of wine. I guess my problem is that I do not like the idea of describing with one label things from different eras with widely different characteristics. Cars make a reasonable analogous case.

 

@Manalto, it does not seem to be such an issue that one chooses years as cutoffs. They will always be arbitrary to some extent because development is continuous, so I could readily accept 1980 as one of those cutoffs. Rather, I am railing against the idea that a 1970s pen might ahve the same "vintage" label as a 1920s pen. It makes no sense. That is not to say a 1970s pen should be called modern, but rather that there be a modest categorisation such as I suggested earlier, which would make a 1970s pen "modern classic" thus distinguishing it from Classics (a lot of Parkers and Esties I guess) and Vintage (pre-1940).

 

Edited to improve awful sentence in first paragraph.

Edited by praxim

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That is more or less what I am trying to get at, not using a single term. The rest is trying to poke around for a little support for this notion. :)

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quote from linearM ................... "I have a Weidlich eye dropper filler pen from about 1898 with a most wonderful nib. I love writing letters with it. It is a beautiful, fully functional pen...call it quite old, but not an antique" ... why not? its age qualifies it perfectly for that description, and 100 years is accepted universally as the defining minimum age for an antique.

 

Vintage was always the prerogative of the vintners trade, and meant nothing unless accompanied by a specific year - stolen originally probably by a dodgy ebay seller who purloined it as a cover-all-term to make something appear older than it really is - like so many 'association words or phrases such as "could be Georgian or Victorian - you make up your mind" - or - "could be by(insert famous maker of you choice)".

Have to say I thought the word did have some legitimate meaning, in the world of old things, and implied an object was at least fifty years old, but not over 100 years so couldn't be called an antique.

 

If the pen is known to be less than 50 years of age then as a suggestion and to keep things simple, we might say - "it's pre-owned"......... and if 50 - 100 years then probably o.k. to say "pre-owned and vintage" - and an eye dropper that we know to be earlier than 1916 gets the full "pre-owned, loved and an antique" :)

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Vintage is stuff I don't care for.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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If the pen is known to be less than 50 years of age then as a suggestion and to keep things simple, we might say - "it's pre-owned"......... and if 50 - 100 years then probably o.k. to say "pre-owned and vintage" - and an eye dropper that we know to be earlier than 1916 gets the full "pre-owned, loved and an antique" :)

 

I agree it is difficult to call a pen antique when it is still fully functional for a modern purpose.

 

Your classification seems fine to me in its essence. Some people might prefer to have their pen called classic in some form rather than merely pre-owned, and that seems fair.

X

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Ah hah!

 

It would be far better to use a term like classic.

 

For example, a Waterman 12 is a classic 1920s pen, as is a Criterion. Yet the Waterman would be classed as a Tier 1 pen, and the Criterion as Tier 3. Both are technically vintage pens if going by year.

 

I guess it depends on what one is trying to convey here.

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What's the newest pen you'd still call vintage? This is where it really gets subjective. I'd use the term for Targas and No Nonsense (or anything before 1980), and I'm certain there will be those who disagree.

 

And don't get me started on people who use the word "retro" for an item that's genuinely from the past. Grrrrrrrr...

 

Much BS removed. I can't see any way to 'regulate' what is 'vintage' or semi-vintage....

 

Then I or other older members like Jar can remember the pens as new in advertising....AH...HA...pens before Advertising in first class magazines and TV stopped are vintage. Those made before the mid-late '90's are semi-vintage.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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Cars use an arbitrary date or age to avoid these sorts of discussions. It also helps that every generation there seems to be a major change in the design or manufacture of cars - monocoque construction, fuel efficiency, handling, safety, pollution etc.

 

For pens the major changes seem to have been in the materials and the filling systems. Hard rubber became celluloid and plastics in the 1920s that are still used today. That is one major change.

 

Filling systems were essentially means to store ink in the pen for portability. There were so many systems used once but they almost all had in common a mechanism to allow ink to be drawn into a reservoir within the pen eg. Aerometric, lever, vacumatic, button, touchdown, snorkel, piston etc etc. Messy and complex with potential leaks and maintenance issues - sacs, seals etc.

 

Inevitably this led to the second major change was the introduction and adoption of the portable ink reservoir - the cartridge. Almost nil maintenance and enhanced portability of ink supply. It has not been universally adopted and many penners prefer the old ways but it did mark another major change in pens.

 

So I would mark the pen eras as foundation until 1920s and vintage until 1960. Modern can deal with the rest as, so far as i can see, there has been no landmark changes in pens since vintage expired.

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I remember reading that nibs changed, becoming stiffer, in around 1950 as Biros became more common. I would think that, along with the introduction of more (modern) plastics at about the same time, provides a logical division of sorts.

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