That is too much reading for a morning.. I'm going with the 20 year rule..

I think the general consensus with the "official cutoff date theory" crowd is 25 years.

Still, when I think vintage drums, I picture 60s Ludwigs, not 80s Pearls...

Or "Vintage Rockers"...That is the same as vintage Pearl Exports.

I realize Rockers utilize the same shells as classic maple 6 ply, or in the case of later Monroe Rocker II 4 ply shells. So, for myself, the 25 year rule brings Rockers, Exports, etc. squarely into the mix, and I hardly think you would find anyone here that would call a Rocker a "vintage Ludwig drum", so I have to stand on my statement above, or below, whichever way you set up your reading style.

Where Star~TAMA and Pearl are concerned, they have been in the game long enough to have some vintage gear, not quite like Ludwig or the others, but age appropriate drums of historical significance, due to the phenomenon now occurring in stencil market. Case in point, a few weeks ago a complete and 100% original Candy Cane set bearing the Dixon badge sold for over $650, nothing special except the wrap. Everything else purely MIJ.

20 years works for me. That brings in the newer crowd. Some stuff is going to have more of a delay being considered vintage. Japanese drums weren't really vintage while USA drums were, from the 60s, but then they started to catch up, when some people decided to collect them because they were cheaper. I'm not that hung up on the word, though. I look at it as a marketing term, and knowing it simply means "the date of origin", the rest of it will be fluid, not written in stone. The definition is going to be flexible depending on who is using it. That's just the way it is.

So long as there is more than one person deciding on "Vintage" parameters ... there will be multiple boundaries laid out.

Just for the heck of it, lets pretend the we and ourselves finally come up with the boundaries and parameters to determine what is and is not vintage.

Lets assume also that the entire drumming world agrees with us, and our conclusion becomes the accepted norm.

And then, oops, someone messes up and uses the term vintage incorrectly.

What happens then..........??

[SIZE="4"]Not a damn thing !!![/SIZE]

Spot on ... as usual.

if the cutoff is in the 70's then new "vintage" collectors will become more and more rare. I understand the building process is different with a 1958 slingerland than it is with a 1978, but what someone in their 40's-60's veiws as the golden era would be different than some one in their 20's-30's might think. it would be short sighted to belive that people in the next few decades wont be hunting down Pacific drums when they were "still made in Mexico".

As I understand it Tama no longer makes Drums in Japan, they were veiwed as cheap crap whan I was growing up, now people are selling Titan stands on ebay boasting MIJ and Japanese quality, try looking for some 1980's yamaha drums on ebay... could buy a new kit.

I guess it's like muscle cars, you have a gold standard, but eventually even a Pacer becomes worth something.