Antique cameras

[marcantel]

<p>How old does a camera have to be for it to be an antique?I know a watch is a hundred years old and a car is 35 to 40 but I can't find anything on a camera.</p>

[andrewg_ny]

<p>'Antique' is in the eye of the seller. If pressed though, my definition of antique for cameras would probably be earlier than 1960 if not 1950.</p>

<p>Actually not so different than cars. I know that by some rules/measures, 35-40 years makes a car antique but to me, it's still 'classic' back to around 1950 or so.</p>

[craigd]

<p>Words like "antique" or "vintage" don't have absolute meanings, but I would not be inclined to call anything made after World War Two an "antique" (at this point), regardless of whether it's a car, a watch, a camera, or whatever.</p>

[keith selmes]

<p>As a child, I was told 100 years for an antique, and I think it was 30 years for vintage, e.g. a vintage car etc.</p>

<p>That has always seemed a good rule of thumb for everyday use, although often I expect it depends who is making the rules, e.g. for a club, society, competition etc.</p>

<p>Looking quickly around the internet there seems possibly to be an actual law in the USA that an antique is 100 years old or more - something to do with customs tarrifs. That is the case with British Customs, goods more than 100 years old at time of importation are classed and treated as antiques. I haven't checked specifically for cameras, but I don't think there is anything different. (The rules aren't quite the same for all goods - e.g. wines and spirits)</p>

 

[marcantel]

<p>Now i'm really confused.But thanks for the comment guy's.</p>

[photo5]

<p>The technical definition of an "antique" is something that is 50 years old. "Classic" is 25 years old. Hasselblad released the 500cm Classic box set in 1982, when the camera turned 25. So I guess all those early Nikon F cameras made in 1959-61 are now considered antiques...</p>

[cliffmanley]

<p>Antique;as related to antiquities, antiquated, outdated, etc. We must be very careful, lest we all become defined as Antiques!</p>

[chuck_foreman1]

Thanks Cliff I feel better already.. Seriously though.. how they apply in society these days varies but I think the literal meanings of these words like an-tique asCliff noted merely means out-dated and vin-tage...usually implies a date ie for wine harvest/bottling etc and even more ambiguous is "classic" is this applicable to what makes or defined the era "classic" as in classical music or literature? Sorry Danny not a lot of help. You need to come to Germany they define everything implicitly.

[seth_.]

<p>My laptop is an antique and it's only 6 years old ;)</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Ah...! This topic again!<br><br>Just a (relevant) note on the Classic Hasselblad: the kit called that was called that, not because the camera was 25 years old, but because Ye Olde Workhorse was replaced by a newer (though beit only a tiny bit different) model, and the Humongous Fan Base would have hated it if that had meant that the Familiar Old Thing would have been discontinued.<br>So (and this is important. The relevant, on topic, bit) even though there no longer was a reason for it to be, they did indeed keep the 500 C/M alive as part of the Classic kit.<br><br>And that is, in my mind, the best definition of antique cameras: cameras that still exist, but which are replaced with something better, and there no longer being any practical (!) reason why anyone would want to use one.<br>A classic camera is an antique camera, but one that despite no longer needing to exist, stuck in people's minds, and is remembered because it was remarkably good (though now bettered), particularly practical (though no longer now), or did something which in its days no other camera did.<br><br>Age, being old, is part of that, in as far as it's impossible to replace something by a new and better thing without that being a <i>new</i> and better thing, making the thing that is replaced the old thing. But no more than that. Hence the possibility to speak of 'modern classics' and 'modern antiques'.