What is vintage?

It is relative. In cars and other items, it is widely considered 25 yers.

Hell, I am an antique. Even my most of my vintage watches where not when I bought them.

I'd say 30 years, not 20

Something recognizable as unbuyable new and a generation or two gone from the market. Iconic watches can be older than dirt but not vintage in my mind because I can buy the same thing new right now!

I'm in the 25-30 year camp, relative to motorvehicles, bikes ect. Have my vintage Swatch Irony and Citizen WindTimer pre-promaster!! Crazy to think these are vintage because then I have to acknowledge my age in doing so 🤷

What PoorMansRolex said. A Royal Oak Jumbo from 5y ago is virtually identical to that from 50y ago. Even the movement is the same. So one can't really be vintage if the other is not.

For me it's more a matter of how it is made and not so much when that was.

Retro= Pre-2000

Vintage= Pre-quartz

Antique= Pre WW2

This sounds about right to me.

Anything older than me is vintage. Anything my age is really old shit.

If it is older than me, vintage.

If it existed when I was in college, neo-vintage.

FWIW, Tag Heuer considers anything older than 20 years to be vintage (and charges significantly higher prices for service)

I'd say thirty years.

I'm wearing a 1972 Timex quartz. I'd call that Vintage.

You could still devide it into neo vintage amd vintage and imho vintage is if it is over 25 years old😉

Time flies so fast... We already live in 2023... So now watches from 2003 are already vintage...

...

Over 20 years old and vintage? no no no no no no no!

Yeah, I'll go with that.

I still own and wear a Swatch made to celebrate the 2000 Olympics. It is in rough shape. And despite its age I don't think I can ever see it as vintage because it looks like any Gent watch today. It's just an old and beaten plastic watch. Calling it vintage would somehow elevate it to something it is not.

When I started collecting, anything 15 years or older was considered vintage. My personal feeling without the usual levity such a topic invariably leads to involves also the appearance: a 15 year old Rolex Datejust doesn’t really develop any interesting vibes. I attended my wife’s nephew’s wedding last summer, her brother wore the same Canali suit that he wore at our wedding 37 summers ago, that was something greater than vintage. It was museum grade stuff!

It's generally over 20, so pinning it exactly at 20 is at the low end of the low end.

I mean, if it makes you feel good that you now have a 'vintage' watch by setting the bar that low, hey, go for it. There's no hard and fast rule. The police aren't going to come and arrest you for believing it. But generally, in real life, it starts around 25; some antique dealers I know would even push it out to 40.

I thought it was over 25 years old to be vintage.

25 years is considered vintage, 20 is in the general ballpark, 45 years is considered antique.

Funny because in french vintage can be read as a contraction of vingt (20) and âge (well is a translation needed ?) So basically the word in itself contains its meaning, everything that has 20 years and more is vintage.

Here's vintage to me, a 1971 King Seiko Hi Beat chronograph - regulated to +1s/ day. Won't be going anywhere...

I wish ups and such would look at it that way, they have 100 years or something stupid to have a watch antique... See my above photo, I queried the import duty and ups said, na that's not antique that's just a watch so you pay full vat rate

True, for tax reasons it’s 100 years. Same thing with old guns it has to be over 100 to be tax exempt.

So many wrong opinions. I am very disappointed in all of you that think that some factor other than age matters. I am also disappointed that some of you don't think that time applies to you, so that it is only vintage if it is older than some arbitrary date that matters to you.

Twenty years has been the accepted norm since, as @Guyllheaume correctly points out, they coined the word. Go register a car at your local DMV. Chances are you can obtain a vintage tag at, 20 years. They don't ask you if it has fins or three on the tree. Many quartz watches are now vintage. The Tag that you bought in 1991 with the extra huge bezel in now vintage.

And if any of you try to make "retro" a thing, so help me, I will turn this car around.

In my state, here in Australia, there are 'classic' and 'historic' registrations. They have their differences, hence why there are two types, but both of them are available when the vehicle is 30 years old.