The term Vintage vs the term Classic in regards to Star Wars

[Paul Armory]

I was reading an article about the soon to be released Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars later this year (as a gift purchase for the young ones in December) the article was titled "Classic Star Wars Vs. Prequel Trilogy In Disney Infinity 3.0".

What are your thoughts about using the term "Classic" as a alternative to "Vintage"?

Just a healthy question to ponder

 

[aussiejames]

My son calls vintage 'special star wars' no matter what term we adopt, vintage or classic there will always be some POTF2 collector that will say classic means 25 years+ so my crap is juts as special as yours....

 

[Paul Armory]

 

[Robstyley]

Hmm.. classic should be reserved for E-Type Jags and Fawlty Towers clips. Don't sound right for Star Wars. It's vintage innit 8)

 

[bradley1360]

Yep vintage for me also!,I hate when doing online searches hundreds of potf 2 figures crop up? and then having to sift through modern crap to find what I am looking for???? if any ! since when was potf 2 EVER classed as vintage?

so ANNOYING

 

[theforceuk]

Vintage Star Wars, that's it.

 

[Paul Armory]

Hmm.. classic should be reserved for E-Type Jags and Fawlty Towers clips. Don't sound right for Star Wars. It's vintage innit 8)

I agree but at some time or another (in the past of course and NOT recently) I'd put money down that when some people heard the word 'vintage' associated with dated Star Wars toys they thought to themselves..."Who the heck would call toys vintage".

 

[Paul Armory]

Hmm.. classic should be reserved for E-Type Jags and Fawlty Towers clips. Don't sound right for Star Wars. It's vintage innit 8)

I agree but at some time or another (in the past of course and NOT recently) I'd put money down that when some people heard the word 'vintage' associated with dated Star Wars toys they thought to themselves..."Who the heck would call toys vintage".

 

[Paul Armory]

Yep vintage for me also!,I hate when doing online searches hundreds of potf 2 figures crop up? and then having to sift through modern crap to find what I am looking for???? if any ! since when was potf 2 EVER classed as vintage?

Yet another reason I asked this question. You search 'Vintage' and all sorts of POTF2 or Vintage Collection items pop up

Let me point out about my opinion; They are Vintage to me and always shall be :wink: Who the hell in their right mind would call them 'Classic'? But then again who the hell accepts change with open arms either? Change never comes without some kind fight, Does it?

I'll be so bold as to have someone accept this challenge... if you sell things on eBay then next time you list something input the word 'Classic' replacing 'Vintage'.

- If you list an auction and are afraid of Not selling at a decent price then start your auction price at a current market value of that item.
- If you list a "Buy It Now" then pay attention to amount of views you get. ** I am not currently in a position to list anything on eBay so I cannot personally do it **

 

[ChrisG]

In the early 90's, as new products were beginning to be released into the marketplace, it was important to start making a distinction so that people knew you were talking about the 70's and 80's items, not the 1993 item. Heck, at that time things like West End Games weren't thought of as part of the original line of toys since they debuted after the fact. Then there were the Hamilton Collector plates and Rarities Mint coins that showed up in the late 80's and only appealed to some collectors as well as those that lusted for manufactured collectibles and who bought into those scams. At the same time there were the few items like Don Post masks which used the same molds that carried right through into the 90's so it was hard to say what was "original" or not with those.

But the online community (most on the USENET newsgroups at the time since the www was just starting out) really started the push for the distinction and "vintage" was the term that was used. Some argued that it wasn't the right word, but we had to call it something and that had been bandied about enough that it was sticking. Even magazines like Action Figure News and Action Figure Digest were starting to use the term.

In 1995 the need to split SW discussions was necessary as the talk of upcoming films and games and whatnot made it hard to keep the collecting things straight. It was the collectors that pushed to have a dedicated .collecting group thus rec.arts.sf.starwars was split up.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.sf.starwars/pK12CEoCWzA

By 1997 we had seen the release of Micro Machines, Bend Ems, as well as the troublingly named Power of the Force toys (quickly called POTF2 to avoid confusion). There was a need to separate the discussions and a Call For Votes went out to split the rec.arts.sf.starwars.collecting group into .vintage and .misc. People just wanted a vintage area and everything else would lump into .misc. Not everyone agreed, but something needed to be done.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.sf.starwars.collecting/g2dpVRFlxRQ/ZaW6FShT2KYJ

The dividing line was 1990. Many people to this day say 1985, but people forget that the Droids and Ewoks were sold through 1986 and Kaybee toys had items on clearance even in 1987. In 1988 and 1989 Glasslite released their SW toy line which was based on the Kenner toys and included the infamous Vlix figure. In 1988 the line of bootlegs in both Poland and Turkey were released and all of these were based on the original Kenner line. Those are all vintage no matter who you ask. And by default the West End Games items now were part of the vintage line.

Anyway, that's history that many folks don't really know about. There is a reason for all of this and many folks still cannot grasp that that in the SW universe "vintage" means product made before 1990 and has nothing to do with the age of the item. POTF2 is now 20 years old but will never be "vintage" by that definition. And Hasbro has used "vintage" in order to capitalize on nostalgia which is good for their sales, but bad for those of us trying to search on eBay. People will call anything "vintage" now just to increase bidding, but that's just something we have to deal with.

How to divide and name things made after 1990? That should be up to the people who collect those lines. We fought the vintage battle so others can fight to split "modern" now that it's 25 years old. By comparison, vintage wasn't even a decade old when the term was born. Funny when you think about it that way, but everyone can agree that there can only be one vintage product period.

Hope this helps
-chris

 

[jedisearcher]

Nice post chrisg, it's strange to think that people actually discussed and voted on this stuff back in the day. I'd always assumed these terms just evolved naturally.

To me, vintage will always be the 1977 onwards lines, whereas anything post-1985 (1987) will be modern and I ain't budging now. I quite like the use of the term 'classic' for modern items, based on vintage designs, such as the POTF2 Classic Edition 4 pack.