Do you collect old stuff? Antiques, vintage, retro, period or antiquity?  Today I am taking a look at what each term means – how old is antique or vintage? Here are my definitions and  why  and how they are applied here on antiquesavenue blog and my antiques shop.

Modern  anything newer than vintage eg less than 20 years old. Applied today that would be anything after 1989. These items could also be know as Second hand or pre-owned. I think the Americans refer to stuff of this age as “Estate”.

Antique or vintage?

Antique – the official legal definition of antique takes us to items of 100 years old or more. 19o9 is not a good cut off date for antiques . The official definition now includes all Edwardian items and many Art Nouveau ones too. Stylistically the end of the Edwardian era is not a good place to change from antique to vintage as style advanced very little during the 1910’s, presumably the first world war held back much of the design change which came in the 1920s . Some major antiques fairs are now allowing anything older than 50 years to be described as antique. I actually think this is too lenient as it means that items from the 1950s are antique where as stylistically they fit so closely with the 1960s that it is best to keep these in vintage. You can see I have divided my jewellery in the shop into antique jewellery and vintage jewellery – the cut off date between the two being circa 1920.

Vintage - anywhere between the modern and antique . By my current interpretation of antique that is 1920s to 1980’s. This period encompasses art deco and modern design of the 195os, 1960s and 1970s. Following the first world war and its immediate aftermath came the 1920s and a drastic shift in design to art deco – stylistically this fits best with the modern design rather than the antique.

Retro - This refers to style rather than age of an item. Retro refers to the high style of the 1950s through to the 1980s but can also refer to new items in that style

Period – these are items which genuinely come from the age they are styled for rather than reproduction. So if a vase is referred to as Period Art Deco it is from the 1920s/ 1930s rather than a newer piece. The opposite to this is to call a piece Art Deco style, if you see this beware it is most likely much newer than the art deco era.

Antiquity – items from the ancient world – the Romans and Greeks for example.

Revival – here is an interesting term. Revival means when a style cam back into fashion. Hence we had an art nouveau revival in the 1970s and I think that there is a little art nouveau revival going on right now – just take a look at some of the swirling designs popular in fabrics and on websites at the moment. Some other revivals are: Egyptian in the 1920s, Japanese -1870s, medieval gothic – 1860s and art deco in the 1980s.

I’m onthe look out for more interesting antique time scale terms – can you suggest any?