I think vintage auto clubs are generally anything over 30 years old. For me, the term is just another pain that reminds me that I'm getting old. The first car I bought was less than 30 years old, but now 30 years later, even I have to admit that it's an antique. If I still owned it, I'd only drive it to the fairgrounds on the 4th of July. For most things, I think of vintage as pre-50s and antique as pre-30s, but that's clearly not everyone's definition.

Mark

 

I tend to think of the mid/late 60s as the transition from "vintage," with the widespread changes that happened then, such as King's move to Eastlake, Conn's shift to Nogales, Buescher's purchase by Selmer, etc.

Vintage, as used for saxophones, tends to imply some sort of old-school craftsmanship. That said, I don't think there is a really clear definition that requires it to not be used to mean simply old, but the use of "vintage" to describe a Mexiconn does seem a bit misleading. (Although not nearly as bad as many claims I have seen...)

 

I still find it hard think of a MKVI as vintage. Having bought them new, it's odd that over the years they get more expensive and somehow better because they are now vintage.

"Oh, it's a vintage saxophone, it must be good"

 

I still find it hard think of a MKVI as vintage.

I have trouble with that too. It implies that I'm also 'vintage' and you too, Pete!

 

Not everything thats old is valuable, sometimes it's just old

 

My vintage 1935 Buescher True Tone alto describes the year is was "harvested."

Just an aside, I didn't realize the True Tones were made after 1930. Do you mean a Buescher Aristocrat? note: I think most Bueschers had the 'true tone' logo stamp, but when referring to it as a model name, it's usually restricted to the 1920, pre-Aristocrat horns.

 

Oops! Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that the horn's a 20's "True Tone." It is indeed an Aristocrat. You are correct. I also have a ca 1923 Buescher " The Elkhart Ind Low Pitch" soprano, s/n 133xxx that's all original other than the re-pad. I rarely play it though it works just fine.

 

If it is older than 25 years and no longer in production, yes it is vintage. My Super 20 1970 is definitely a Vintage horn.

 

The word "vintage" has a lot of different definitions. The words seem to stem from a year or time period that a specific batch of wine was made. Thus, the "vin" meaning wine.

I believe the best definition that matches the way we are using it is as follows:

characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.

or

of lasting interest and importance; venerable; classic.

So basically, it's a saxophone model that has stood the test of time and is considered to have appeal. So while a 1970's Conn Director alto might not be considered as vintage, an early 1970 Mexiconn 12M baritone might be. It's still a solid great sounding horn almost indistinguishable from the late Elkhart model. Thus, the "appeal" part is pretty important. :bluewink:

 

characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.

or

of lasting interest and importance; venerable; classic.

I like this definition. And hey Pete, maybe we can apply it personally, also!! One thing's for sure, I don't want or need no stinkin' relacquer (well maybe I need it, but I don't want it).

 

"Vintage" has the same meaning as "old," but it is paired with a favorable connotation. Obviously, old is a very loose term, and it can refer to vastly different years of age. An "old" cell phone, or "old" computer is much younger in years than the average "old" person. In terms of saxophones, I tend to think of anything pre-mark vi as vintage, but again, this is very subjective.

 

I think it depends on how old YOU are. I still think of antique as 100 years, vintage as up to and perhaps including WW2. I am personnaly posivitly Art Deco so that might color my ideas.

 

FWIW, eBay's "vintage sax" category is anything pre-1980. So, ebay says about 30 yrs. for a sax. Strangely, many of their other vintage categories do not specify dates (e.g., cameras, jewelry, clothing). Their vintage categories that do have defining dates are generally pre-1930 (e.g., linens, sewing, science & medicine). Even more strange is the category for "vintage musical instruments" (not to be confused with vintage saxophones pre 1980) which has a defining date of pre-1930. Go figure.

 

Someone else said it already--you need to differentiate between vintage and just plain old.

Think of it like cars: many US vehicles from the 50's were already considered vintage (and desireable) by the 70s. Same with 60's cars by the 80s. Only 20 years, but they had something that made them special.

How about US cars from the 70s after about 1972? Almost 40 years old now, and much less of them are considered desireable. Mostly ugly and poorly made junk.

 

To my mind it makes sense to see the MKVI as the first modern saxophone. For me, vintage saxes are the ones whose designs predate the MKVI.

I guess I'm not alone! You beat me to it.

 

I have a hard time considering a '70's horn vintage, especially my VII.
But I am.

 

30 years is vintage according to ebay.

 

Well ebay would be right, without question!!

 

The word Vintage is a trade definition and it's not set in stone, it can be loosely applied to all sorts of things in a different manner. It not so much what each of us thinks Vintage is but rather what the market defines vintage with.

I have bought and sold Vintage furniture for quite some time and anything from 1910 until 1980 (prior to that we go to the definition of Antique) is considered " Vintage" in the trade as being older than 25 years , typical of its era, recognisable as such, most of the times with good documentations as to whom its designer and producer was. The same criteria apply for Vintage clothes.

The fact that it was a quality product is completely irrelevant to the definition of Vintage , lots of vintage objects are purely defined by their nostalgia appeal.............. (this is a reference to the comment about a Conn Director not being " Vintage" because of inferior quality when it was made. Vintage is defined by age, not by desirability, you can have a Vintage object that is not commercially appealing now as it was then or one that wasn't at the time it was made and it is now or even one that was nothing special them and it still isn't now!)

 

The fact that it was a quality product is completely irrelevant to the definition of Vintage , lots of vintage objects are purely defined by their nostalgia appeal.............. (this is a reference to the comment about a Conn Director not being " Vintage" because of inferior quality when it was made. Vintage is defined by age, not by desirability, you can have a Vintage object that is not commercially appealing now as it was then or one that wasn't at the time it was made and it is now or even one that was nothing special them and it still isn't now!)

This just shows how differenctly the word can be used. The definitions I gave were official but were only two of many. Milandro is using a different definition akin to this:

representative of the best and most typical

Milandro is stressing the "typical" part. In this definition, a vintage 1970's saxophone would be one that has features typical of saxophones made in the 1970's. Thus to Milandro, a Conn Director would be a vintage 1970's US-made student sax.

This just goes to show that there are many differences and subtleties in the ways this term is used.

 

The Vintage Sports Car Club define "vintage" as all cars built between 1920 & 1931. 1931 to include all the "real" Bentleys, before the Company was bought out by Rolls Royce.
Vintage in their nomenclature does not therefore mean good....simply falling within a time scale. There were some real dogs built in the 1920s.
Cars built in the 1930s, to the same specification as cars built in the 1920s have to be included & are known by the VSCC as Post Vintage Thoroughbreds.
It could be argued that PVTs are all good because they survive on their merit alone....cars such as Aston-Martin, Alfa Romeo, Frazer Nash, Isotta-Fraschini, Maserati & similar mouth watering exotica.
Selected cars built in the 1950s are known as Classic....fortunately however, most of those have rotted away.
Do we really want, or need, such specific definitions to apply to saxophones?
Surely it is better to simply play what you enjoy & what suits you....leave the esoteric titles to the Anoraks, Train Spotters & Bird Watchers. :bluewink:

 

well, from a stylistic point of view I consider it a vintage instrument of medium to low (the last production) quality

 

I agree. The Director pales in comparison to my beloved 1970's Bundy. Now that's a "vintage" sax!!! :bluewink:

 

Well, since I'm the guy who started this, I spent some time searching for the derivation and usage of the word "vintage". From an on-line etymology site, I found this: "mid-15c., "harvest of grapes, yield of wine from a vineyard," from Anglo-Fr. vintage (mid-14c.), from O.Fr. vendage "yield from a vineyard," from L. vindemia "a gathering of grapes, yield of grapes," from comb. form of vinum "wine" + stem of demere "take off" (from de- "from, away from" + emere "to take;" see exempt). Sense shifted to "age or year of a particular wine" (1746), then to a general sense of "being of an earlier time" (1883). Used of cars since 1928."

Over time I've often seen the term "vintage 1935 cabernet" or "vintage 1970 Chevvy," etc. The word is always used to modify the year or date. In the case of the Conn horn that started this conversation, the terminology used didn't make sense to me; e.g. "vintage Conn alto saxophone." Using the definition above, the "general sense of an earlier time," I suppose I could advertise for sale "vintage 2004 Buick LeSabre." That would be correct usage even though a 2004 model car would not be considered old, I think. However if I eliminated "2004" - vintage Buick LeSabre, that would not be correct usage.

Ah well, this has been beat to death and really, to no point. So guess I'll open my "Vintage 2011 2 Buck Chuck Merlot" and forget about the whole thing ;-)

 

For saxes I would consider the end of the pro horns for most US makers. Thus Bueschers, Kings, Martins, Conns from the 60s although in reality, the 1950s were probably a good cutoff. A lot has to do with the models as a mid 60s Aristocrat would not have the value of a TH&C. For Martins I think the later ones up until the end around 1971 were as good or better than many from the 40s. Conns through the 6M/10M models are still horns to be had.Sometimes an end to certain model makes it become "vintage" as the Mark VI did for Selmer. Maybe vintage for us should be the models up to and including the ones everyone wants.

 

Well said, great post Bruce.

 

The answer is yes if the 1970 horn features a design from an era that would definitely be considered vintage. For example, a 1975 King Super 20 is a vintage horn since that model was around since 1946 and, though it was tweaked along the way, it was essentially the same horn through its run. In contrast, I would not consider a 1975 Mark VII a vintage horn because it was new that year and featured a lot of modern design elements from that time. (Plus I've played a few Mark VII's and to me there is very little difference between these in sound and playability to a modern Selmer Series II.)

So getting back to the OP, yes, I consider an early '70s Conn Director to be a vintage horn because that model had been in production since the mid '50s--and taking that even further, the Director's (16M) basic design is modelled after a M series horn, which goes back to the 1930s (and with keywork based on a 1920s design). So yes, defintely a vintage horn in this case.

 

By that definition a 1935 10M would not be considered vintage because "...it was new that year and featured a lot of modern design elements from that time..."

 

You're taking me out of context. Please reread my entire post for comprehension, especially the phrase, "The answer is yes if the 1970 horn features a design from an era that would definitely be considered vintage."

 

I would consider a 1970 Selmer Mark VI to be vintage. Maybe a Super 20 and some others too.
But some other saxes produced in 1970 might be more like a 1970 Chevy Vega.

 

Must separate the usage of the word into whether it's a noun or adjective, imo. #s 9 & 10 below describe the "adjective" word "vintage" well in this context, ie "is it a 'vintage' sax," as opposed to "is this sax 'vintage'"...

–adjective
9. representing the high quality of a past time: vintage cars; vintage movies.
10. old-fashioned or obsolete: vintage jokes.
11. being the best of its kind: They praised the play as vintage O'Neill.

or, from another source, pretty much the same thing, #s 7 & 8...

— adj
7. representative of the best and most typical: vintage Shakespeare
8. of lasting interest and importance; venerable; classic: vintage films
9. old-fashioned; dated

compared with the usage as a noun...

–noun
6. the class of a dated object with reference to era of production or use: a hat of last year's vintage.

or

— n
4. a time of origin: a car of Edwardian vintage
5. informal a group of people or objects of the same period: a fashion of last season's vintage

(definitions from dictionary.com, absent numbers were not included insomuch as they related directly to wine/wine making, and made the post much longer)

Therefore, a sax from the '70s could easily be classified as a "vintage" sax.

 

Ah, but then the phrase should read, as I said earlier; "vintage 1970 Conn 16M . . . etc." Then the word "vintage" shows what year it was made, or in the instance of wine, the year the grapes were harvested. When the advert reads "vintage Conn 16M. . . " it implies only, by current interpretation of the term, that the horn is "old." Used correctly, putting the word before the year more exactly identifies the age of the item. That then allows the reader to decide whether or not the item is of a "vintage" that's desirable to him.

 

Egads! We are in violent agreement! :shock: (metaphorically speaking of course! :bluewink: )

(I am not an English major, nor do I play one on TV. However, I do have kids that correct my grammar on a regular basis!)

 

A friend of mine used to deal in vintage furniture and such, at least in that field "vintage" means something that's not quite antique, but not old c**p or modern "mass item" either. The key is desirability, if nobody's willing to pay money for it, then it's just old junk, if someone will pay for it, it's vintage. He had lots of items from the 70:s (though he also had furniture over 100 years old) as people who were young then liked to buy that stuff for nostalgia.

So it's kind of "antique for everyday use", old stuff with both nostalgic and practical value, not fragile or obsolete enough to be unusable and not quite valuable enough to be a museum piece or an investment to be stored away or kept in a glass case for display and not to be used in fear of ruining it's value.

This, I think, kind of describes vintage horns too, they are modern enough to be usable for everyday playing but old enough to have nostalgic value, history and "character".

Of course the accurate lines between antique, vintage and modern are sometimes hard to define but I like to consider my two 70:s horns vintage as they were made in an era very different from now in a state (east Germany) that doesn't exist any more and at least the bari probably has a long history of professional use.