The word "vintage" really started in the clothing industry. If we were to follow the guidelines for clothing, vintage would refer to any drum made prior to the 1950's. Any drums made after would be referred to as "Retro".

Of course the word has been saturated in the drum world and people refer to kits made in the 80's as vintage. If we used vintage the same WAY that the wine industry does I could refer to my Gretsch Renowns as a 2009 vintage!

Well, I thought for a car to be a "classic" it had to be 20 years old. So could that have any impact on what defines a "vintage" drum set?

This had been already discussed here - I think we came to a conclusion that it's individual, but many people consider drums vintage if they are manufactured before 1980. That is also my own opinion, and I don't think today's drums will really get that vintage aura as those of 60s, because that was just the golden time of music and also, drums weren't produced in such quantities, wich makes them rare today. After forty years, my drums I bought almost new this winter might be considered vintage, but there'll be hundreds of them, in my country alone. And the 60s drums will still be much more valuable.

In regards to vintage American drums....

After about the time 1980 hit, there was little left, in this country, that was actually made in this country anymore. So, anything up until 1980 is a good, even number to shoot for when speaking of the limitation-age for vintage, American-made drums.

Thanks for your responses, I thought this might have been discussed before but I'm relatively new and couldn't find a thread. People seem to abuse the term "vintage" I guess because if your selling a 1995 drum set it sounds better to call it vintage rather than used.

There's been about 1 thread per month on this topic since I joined the forum...

"Vintage" actually means "of a certain era". Vintage drums, like the name of this forum refers to, are typically the great drum kits from the mid 70s and before.

Some people are confused and think that vintage drums are drums that are older than, say, 25 or 30 years, and that the cutoff date keeps creeping forward as time goes by. Not so. I believe that most people who are seriously into vintage drums wouldn't consider that early 80s Tama drum kit a vintage kit, and probably never would.

I wonder, if at some point the label "vintage" becomes part of the common vernacular to mean drums older than 25 years, if there will be a new designation for drum kits made pre-70s. Perhaps "kits from the golden era" or "the great classic kits" or something like that. Hmm...

Vintage drums are the one's I played as a kid and young man. Ancient drums were made before I was born...

Excited

....those were logs, stumps and sticks, sometimes an animal would die nearby and fall onto said stump, the hide would dry and stretch across the stump, making for a better sounding stump....Walkingand if you were lucky, a rattlesnake was in it's gullet, making it a snare stump...Coffee Break2

I would move the date back to 1975. At that point the 3 plys were mostly gone.