It’s almost May; do you know what that means? It’s time to break out the SPF, find your favorite sunhat, and grease the wheels on your collapsible cart. Can you smell the dust already? Oh yeah, it’s flea market season.

To all my experienced antiquers, thrifters, and lovers of bric-a-brac out there, rejoice. It’s our time. For those of you here that are new to the game, I bid you the warmest of welcomes. Anxious to know what all the fuss is about but unsure where to start? Your best best is a few clear-cut definitions and background info to get you started. This guide will quickly prepare you for any and all flea markets, antique shows, craft fairs, attic-crawling, basement-diving, or yard sale-exploring you plan on indulging in this season.

Know before you go

Antiquing may seem like an outdated pastime, but it’s only growing in popularity. Antiques and vintage finds are not just status symbols for the wealthy anymore. Instead, they’re actually becoming kind of necessary. Recycling is in vogue now, and with that comes the skill-building passion of upcycling. Then you have DIY and restoration that encourage hands-on creativity. All become solutions to creating your perfect interior space without breaking the bank. It’s also nostalgic, potentially thrilling, and just fun.

But to a beginner it can be intimidating. There are a lot of terms tossed around and often a lot of confusion over them. The difference between antique and vintage is probably the most common question. Are you actually “antiquing” or “thrifting?” Is it “retro?” Is it real? Is there even a difference? You bet.

So what’s the difference, really?

This is a completely valid question. These days, words are so often tossed around so casually that their true meanings become easily muddled, sometimes lost. Whether you’re planning on becoming a flea market hobbyist, or even just want to put some more gusto behind your haggling, then it’s good to know the proper definitions.

When it comes to the Antique v. Vintage debate, the biggest difference is simple: its age. According to the experts, an antique must be at least 100 years old.*

*{The only exception to the 100-year rule as a classification of antique is automobiles. Generally, for a car to be considered an antique it only needs to be about 25 years old. This distinction is also mainly for insurance purposes as opposed to historiographic reasons, and its rules and regulations usually vary by state}

Vintage items are less than 100 years old, and typically (but not always) have a collectible kind of vibe to them. Think dinnerware, glassware, flatware (really, any kind of “ware”), watches, records, toys, books, fashion. Remember that cool girl in high school that had a vintage purse collection; your grandma’s collection of metal Coca-Cola signs; your uncle’s belt-buckles.

Meanwhile, antiques are also traditionally defined by their craftsmanship and their rarity. Here, I want you to think of the items you might see in a museum: furniture, textiles, jewelry, even architectural salvage. Objects like these are generally much harder to find and usually come with a heftier price tag. These limitations, however, are what spark the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of the find in the world of antiquing.

A quick vocab rundown

You’re probably here because you love old stuff, so it stands to reason you’re also a history buff. If that’s the case, I’m sure you won’t mind indulging me in a little historic vocabulary lesson.

Antique

By definition, the word antique refers to something of or belonging to the past. The dictionary isn’t going to tell you that it needs to be 100 years old or more. That’s just a frame of reference created by historians and used by collectors and dealers. “Antique” comes from the Latin antīīquus or in front, meaning it predates our current frame of time; it’s before the present.

Vintage

You know how the year a wine was produced is called its vintage? Ever wonder how that came to be? The word vintage very simply means of age. More specifically, vintage is a Middle-English term that combines the word vintner–a wine maker–with the word age. Vintner comes from the Latin vindēmia, meaning grape-gathering. Interesting, isn’t it?

But how did the term transition from winemaking to just…stuff? Vintage as a noun traditionally refers to the harvest and production year of wine, but over the years came to be an adjective to more broadly describe an age of production; something that stands out as a representation of its era, of the utmost interest and importance; something special that is worth remembering.

Retro

This definition is quick and to the point, and if you ask me, it’s a fun one.

Retro comes from the word retrograde, which means to move backward. And that’s it, definition over. Short and sweet, like I said. Retro applies to all things that exist in the present but invoke the past. It’s also less about objects, and more about the vibes and aesthetic.

The perfect example is the 1950s diner motif: black & white checkered floor tiles, jukeboxes, red-cushioned stools, and those sweet, sweet lucite tabletops. Think about how it feels to walk into one of these places. What is it that you think to yourself when you cross that threshold? That you’ve perhaps…stepped back in time? There you have it.

Don’t fear the Repop

Did you think our arsenal of vocab words ended at Retro? It doesn’t. Next up are reproductions, more commonly known in the thrifting game as “repops.”

The definition of a repop is exactly what it sounds like: a reproduction of something else, a modern creation made to look like an antique or vintage item. With our means of production in this day and age, repops are everywhere. You see them all the time in discount home décor stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx, big box stores like Target and Walmart, even craft stores like Michaels. And let us not forget any gift shop in any tourist town basically anywhere. The items, themes, and craftsmanship may vary, but every single one of these stores offer easily accessible repop antiques at affordable prices.

It’s not entirely uncommon to see repop tents or stands at flea markets or in antique malls, either. While they may seem out of place standing up against actual antiques, repop sellers still have something to offer. There’s a DIY aspect to repop that feels more casual and creative, less restrictive than dealing with preservation or restoration. There’s also no inherent evil in producing replicas, so long as there’s no conscious swindling going on. If you feel any sort of aversion to repop, my best advice is to learn how to tell the difference.

Bonus Tip: I think repops are perfect for holiday and seasonal decorating–low stakes, low prices, low maintenance, and easy to accumulate.

Spotting the difference

Learning the differences between all kinds of pre-loved treasures takes years of experience. Honestly, this article barely scratches the surface of what’s out there and how to identify it including collectibles, curios, memorabilia, the kitsch, the posh, salvage, artifacts, and fossils. Your antiquing desires can go as far back in time as you wish, be a casual interest or a formal, investigative quest. Keep in mind that material history is a legitimate field of study that casts an extremely wide net that may touch upon museum studies or even archeology.

For a beginner, however, this guide is enough to get you started. What they all have in common is their nostalgic appeal, their stories, their histories, their memories. Whichever style we embrace, we all have inside of us an inherent desire to preserve our memories. Some of us even feel the need to preserve memories that aren’t even our own. We’re called historians, mostly. But also antiquers, thrifters, collectors, pickers, keepers, hoarders, trash-divers, flea market crawlers, junkers, upcyclers, DIY divas, treasure hunters. No matter the moniker, what we all have in common is simple: how much we love stuff and things.

Antique v. Vintage: What’s the Difference?

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Know before you go

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So what’s the difference, really?

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Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash