Antique, Vintage or Used Furniture...

Last night my husband and I were looking through the classifieds and couldn't help but notice the words "Antique and/or Vintage" in at least half of the listings titles.  It seemed if one of these words were in the title the price was much higher.  We found ourselves wondering,  "what truly makes a piece Antique and/or Vintage and why am I paying more money for it?"

I got online today to check it out.  I had an idea in my mind but I wanted to make sure what I was thinking was indeed accurate.

Let's start with the easy one, Antiques.

I am sure when most of you, like myself, hear the word antique we automatically assume it is old!  Which is correct, but the question is how old does it have to be??  100 years old!
I hope I am never that old, but if I am I think earned the title of Antique, I would be valuable then right? (in the money valuable way)
There is a little catch though, antiques should be in their original form and in no way altered.   If something is truly an Antique it can be more expensive.

Now for Vintage (it is a little tricky)

The actually definition of Vintage Furniture is furniture that is characterized by maturity, excellence, and enduring appeal.  Most websites agreed vintage furniture is at least 25 years old.  However there did seem to be a board view of what Vintage really is.  

I found an awesome website, The Finer Times.  If you like antiques and collectibles you need to check it out.  I believe they gave the best definition, "The word “vintage” is properly defined as something of high quality that demonstrates styles of the past." 
Just because something is "Vintage" does not always warrant a higher price tag.

As for Used Furniture

If it doesn't fit into one of the following 2 categories then yes, it is JUST used furniture.  That isn't a bad thing though.  A lot of my furniture I refinish falls in to this category, mainly because it is in great shape and it doesn't have a large price tag.  For someone like me I am more interested in fun lines, how it functions, restoring and resell.  I am not a collector so the higher price tag scares me away.  

There you have my take on Antique, Vintage, and Used Furniture.  
I hope this helps you in your search /selling of furniture. 

Sorry there are no pictures....what is a blog post with out pictures right???

TTFN

Brooke