Age range for "Vintage" models

[FRRYKid]

Got another one for my Forum friends: What are the age ranges when one talks about modern vs vintage vs ancient models?  I was reading an article talking about reworking a vintage model and I got curious. As usual, any assistance would be most welcomed.

[DAVID FORTNEY]

Modern--1990-now

Vintage--1950--1980

Ancient?--before 1950

These are my thoughts, may not be 100% correct. But that's the way I see it. 

Dave

[SeeYou190]

I would think with near certainty that anything 1955-1965 would be vintage.

Now, how far in either direction from those dates would probably be a matter of perspective.

I think ten year fewer than Dave does, and consider 1950-1970 as vintage.

This is my own meaningless opinion.

-Kevin

[IRONROOSTER]

One way to classify them is:

Ancient - before I was born in 1947.

Vintage - before I got into the hobby in 1972.

Modern - after I got into the hobby, 1972 onwards.

Another way would be:

Ancient - hard to find

Vintage - no longer made but readily available on eBay or at train shows

Modern - currently made (or less than five years ago)

Paul

[mbinsewi]

I agree with Paul.  I know some of you have some really old wooded freight car kits, I think those would be ancient.

Mike.

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

I have lots of Athearn and Varney metal cars from the late 40's and 50's.

I have lots of Silver Streak wood/metal kits from the 50's/60's (and some of these from as recently as the 80's, they just stoped being produced 10 or so years ago)

I have lots of Yellow box, red/white box, and blue box Athearn plastic cars from the 50's/60's/70's/80's/90's........

I have lots of MDC/Roundhouse plastic kits, also covering the late 50's thru the late 80's.

I have lots Athearn yellow/blue box "Ready to Roll" from the last 15-20 years, which for the most part is manufactured from slightly revised tooling from those yellow box and blue box kits which started in the 50's.

I have original red box GLOBE (Athearn) passengers cars, and plenty of their yellow and blue box later versions, as well as their recent "Ready to Roll" versions.

And this list is just the major stuff.........

I never considered the idea of grouping them in to "catagories" based on their age...........especially considering how long some of this tooling has stayed in production.

Athearn made this in 2010:

 

And this in 1970:

 

In both cases I have modified them some........

Here are just a few photos of "antique" and "vintage" rolling stock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a little extra detail here and there, most of these models hold up pretty well against most midrange models offered today.

Because I am just not a photo bug, this is a very small sample......

Sheldon  

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

Lastspikemike

Before DCC and after DCC.

Anything built before DCC was available is now pretty much vintage. The true division of vintage would probably be "worth keeping" and "basically junk" ( purely from a model railroading perspective, collecting  "old stuff" is a very personal thing and one I simply don't understand).

Note the substantial transition period of various levels of ease of and practicality of DCC convertibility.

 

With locomotives I would tend to agree even though I don't use DCC.

Nearly all my motive power has been manufactured in the last 30 years.

It just so happened that DCC came along just after the manufacturing revolution changed how these locomotives could be made.

I don't collect old junk either, and some of it was. Pre 1990's RTR rolling stock was mostly junk. 

But as I demonstrated above, many models that are still in production have their roots in 1950's kit tooling.

This industry has produced great models in nearly every era since WWII, and it has produced some cheap, poorly made junk. Age alone is not the determining factor, especially regarding rolling stock and structures.

I have lots of "vintage" structures too.

One more thought, when I started in this hobby, very little of anything considered "high quality" was easy or came RTR.......

Sheldon 

[mlehman]

In my experience, these terms are mostly used on ebay and are thus immune from how most of us might describe something. They are thrown around with little regard for any definition, along with that very generic "rare." Caveat emptor.

[SeeYou190]

mbinsewi

I know some of you have some really old wooded freight car kits, I think those would be ancient.

One "Ancient" freight car that I built from an Ambroid kit:

Eventually I will re-letter this car as a ficticious railroad and add it to my Fleet Of Nonsense.

mlehman

In my experience, these terms are mostly used on ebay and are thus immune from how most of us might describe something.

According to eBay sellers, my Tyco Ralston Purina refrigerated boxcar is:

1) Rare

2) Hard To Find

3) Treasured

4) Vintage

5) Classic

In reality, it is common, easy to find, and worthless.

-Kevin

[dknelson]

There won't be any one answer to this question not just because it is largely a function of experience and opinion, but also for every "hard and fast" rule you can think of, a funny little exception pops up.  But that does not mean it isn't a worthy topic for input. 

I think more in terms of technology, materials, and features than arbitrary years.  And in doing so, I am particularly thinking of buying decisions of used or new stuff.  For the most part my list also reflects my HO experience, other scales may vary.  

For locomotives, can motors versus open frame (and for open frame, the old 6 volt motors from pre WWII are truly vintage).  Die cast to brass, brass to plastic/cheap, plastic/cheap to plastic superdetailed.  

For all rolling stock, RP25 wheel contour and flange depth versus pre-RP25.  Subcatagory for HO, Code 88 wheel width versus Code 110.

DCC (including DCC ready) versus pre DCC. 

For just about everything (rolling stock, structures, track) plastic versus pre-plastic.  The move to plastic was a huge and often wrenching change for many modelers, as reading published letters to the editor of Model Railroader from 1956 to 1966 can reveal.  

Switch machines or motors: Tortoise or other slow motion machines versus twin coil (Atlas, Tenshodo, TruScale etc.). 

Control methods: central cab versus walkaround with memory or walkaround wireless. 

Couplers: pre-horn hook (Baker, Mantua, Marco etc); horn-hook versus Kadee 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8;  Kadee 5s; Kadee clones and scale sized.

Scratchbuilding: metal/soldered and wood versus plastic and laser cut wood.   Cyanoacrylates vs pre CA -- and CA is another example of how arbitrary cutoff dates are misleading.  I and many modelers I know probably did not use CA until the late 1970s, but Eastman 910 was sold in the late 1950s and I think there was mention of it around 1960 or so in Model Railroader, and again when Loctite came out with its version.

Model railroad photography: film versus digital of course, but digital manipulated by computer programs versus "pure" is another divide.  

I do not and cannot make rigid "cut off dates" for this kind of analysis, and entire decades are in play for some of them and could be put on either side of the divide.

For example, Mantua introduced its die cast metal steam locomotives in the early 1950s.  They sold them for decades, introducing more and more plastic into the kit.  Eventually can motors were introduced, then DCC.  But the heart was still 1950s standards for detail and prototype (in)accuracy.  You could say similar things for the original Athearn plastic kits, some of which are essentially still being sold to us in assembled versions (as are - gasp -- Bachmann Plasticville structures!).  Indeed it is remarkable how long a life some model railroad industry tooling has had, seemingly longer than just about any other consumer product I can think of off hand, with the possible exception of Victor mousetraps.  

And sometimes old things come back.  When I started in the hobby there were still some old timers who used a lot of card stock and Strathmore board in their scratchbuilding and kitbuilding.  Now I see a resurgance of interest in using paper for structures, for example.

Another thing that has come full circle.  In 1934 everything was buy by mail, usually direct from the manufacturer.  It took a few years before buying at the hobby shop was the priority.  Then the mail order discounters.  But whether by mail or at the LHS it was stuff on the shelf, even brass locomotives.  And now an for the last two decades: buy by internet/mail and advance reservation required for the latest locomotives and often rolling stock.   

Maybe one way to divide things up is to think in terms of Model Railroader itself.  I would say issues of MR from 1934 to 1945 are of mostly antiquarian interest in terms of the articles, methods and materials, although some of the drawings and prototype information are useful.  1945 to 1954 or so you are still dealing with a clearly earlier and even quaint era but more articles, such as the Eric Stevens structure articles, begin to be of use, and more of the track plans have elements that can still be considereed.  1955 to 1980 has ample material that is actually useful, and a modest example is the Paul Larson Swift refrigerator car scratchbuild; another would be the Art Curren kitbashes if you can find the original kits.  Almost anything "high tech" in 1955 to 1980 (product or article) is more or less useless today, with a few exceptions of course.  1980 to 2000 is a transition era where again it is the high tech stuff that is now outdated, everything else is quite useful.  The ad prices will make you cry, and the letters to the editor complaining about high prices will make you laugh.  The page after page of classified ads and hobby dealer lists are a thing of the past.  So is - and I am sure Kalmbach knows this as well as any of us - the day of the index of advertisers taking up a full page in the magazine is also a thing of the past.  

Dave Nelson

[FRRYKid]

Then as an example, AHM U25Cs would be either vintage or antique depending on definition. (I have 3 of them ex-NP patched to BN) Older than I am and hard to find.

[doctorwayne]

I can't say if this mid-'50s era all-metal boxcar from Varney is vintage or antique, but I can tell you that completely disassembling it and then re-assembling it with some modifications has made it into a more useful car, and one that fits in a little better with more modern offerings...

It's value, to me only, is sentimental.

Wayne

[NittanyLion]

I don't really possess the capacity to worry about it. You can't really just throw years at stuff anyhow. There's too much context. 

[L. Zhou]

Everything before my birthdate (2003 and earlier), I consider "before my time." 

A small portion of the rolling stock I have falls into the catagory.