Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there's no real consensus on what years of cards can still be considered vintage. It seems like there's a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas on what vintage cards are. It's never truly been explained and made official, at least to my knowledge, so I felt like I should go over various answers that I've heard from other collectors before I explain what I believe the vintage card era is.
I've heard multiple people say that vintage cards are any cards from 1979 and before, and while I see how they got to that answer, I have to disagree. Despite being from the 1970's, sets from 1976-1979 are in a completely different price range than cards before those years. Even 1975 Topps has extraordinarily different prices compared to 1976 Topps, even if they're just 1 year apart. This could be due to baseball not maintaining the momentum built up in the '75 World Series or some other factor. But either way, there's a huge difference between 1975 baseball cards and the cards produced even just 1 year after.
I've also heard views on the opposite end of the argument from people who believe a very select amount of sets should be considered true vintage. The argument presented was that there are just 2 decades of vintage cards. The first being the 1950's and the second being the 60's.
The problem I have with this view on the vintage card argument is that you really can't just leave out the 1970-1975 Topps sets because of how influential and iconic they were and how well the symbolized what the game of baseball was like at that time. Sure, the 50's and 60's come to mind when you think about vintage cards, but don't 70's cards do that as well. Despite the fact that they're from a different time in history compared to the 50's and to a lesser degree, the 60's cards, they are still connected in terms of being vintage cards and are linked by a number of factors including set designs, players included in the sets, and values attributed to the cards.
Therefore, my take on the whole "what is a vintage card" idea is a bit more complex. I don't believe one whole decade can be vintage while the next cannot. Therefore, in my eyes, Topps Flagship sets from 1952-1975 should be considered vintage cards. For me, it was the big drop in values of the cards from '75 to '76 that sealed the deal. Vintage cards are valuable and have a certain look to them. Sets starting in 1976 lose that value and therefore, lose that vintage feel. However, I know people will disagree and I'm actually quite interested to hear other sides of the disagreement from various people. However, based on the details I provided, I strongly believe that 1952-1975 is what should be considered the vintage card era.
"Vintage" has nothing to do with prices. 1965 Topps is about as classic a card design as there is, but it's one of the cheapest and easiest sets to assemble from scratch from the decade. Does that mean it's less vintage than 1966? Clearly not. The purpose of the term is merely to distinguish older cards (either cards you collected as a child or cards from before you ever collected) from current cards. The dictionary definition of "vintage" is "length of existence", so age is the only determining factor. No one really talked about "vintage" at the time but, if you were collecting in the 50s, vintage might have been the 20s or teens. Its a sliding scale. At present, "vintage" is generally applied to anything before Fleer and Donruss entered the fray. That's nearly 40 years ago. That's a lot of "length of existence". Vintage. Collect what you want, call it what you want, but don't tell other people their 1976 cards aren't "vintage" because you'd be wrong by every measure. And think about the fact that it won't be very long before the cards of the junk wax era are considered "vintage". Oh, yes, they will be...once they've attained the necessary "length of existence".
ReplyDeleteGood discussion point. I consider vintage 1980 and older for American baseball cards. When Donruss and Fleer came on the scene, I feel like they amped things up with their designs into a more modern look.
ReplyDeleteI guess ultimately everyone will have a different answer and a good reason for it. I’ve always gone with 1973. The last year a Topps issued cards in Series. Maybe add a couple years and go from 75 back. But it truly is a time thing. Vintage to some is not vintage to others. I’ll go with 75
ReplyDeleteI'd say it truly depends on the age of each individual collector; we'll never come to a consensus on what the exact range of vintage cardboard entails. For me, personally, everything pre-1980 is vintage... maybe even everything from before I was born in '89. However, I'd have a hard time telling a collector in their teens today that stuff from the 90's isn't vintage, regardless of it feeling much more modern to me. This should make for an excellent discussion point though!
ReplyDeleteThis is a discussion that will continue to go on for as long as there are collectors. I used to consider anything since before I started collecting cards "vintage," which would be pre-1974. But I've updated that to the pre-Donruss/Fleer era even though it hurts that cards I collected as a kid be considered "vintage."
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could ever consider the junk wax era as "vintage," no matter what anyone younger than me said. But then again they're calling some of what makes the music charts in 2018 "music," so no one is consulting me.
I've played with multiple cutoffs at different times.
ReplyDelete1980—Last year of Topps monopoly before Donruss and Fleer crashed the party.
1973—Last year (for decades) of Topps releasing in multiple series
1969—Last year of Topps photography being predominantly medium format film (much of 1970 is clearly shot on 35mm)