How Many Years does it Take to be an Antique?

An antique can be any piece of furniture, tableware and other items such as books and jewelleries that are made much earlier than the present. Antiques aside from being an old item are also known for its degree of craftsmanship and counting other unique features such as its condition, rarity and it looks.

In short, antiques are most likely to be some sort of valuable collectible items; it is no wonder why these things are hot items for thieves as you can see in movies. You can usually get antiques in antique shops, in an auction, on a real estate (where it is being pass down), museums or even inside your house.

Antique rocking chair

Antique items though old never goes out of fashion and must still be in good condition. You might have some old looking grandfather’s clock in your house or that vintage looking lampshade in your grandma’s bedroom. But are you sure all that the old things you see in an old manor are really antiques? How can you identify if an item is an antique or not? Most of definition of the word “antique” stretches out that an item as least as 100 years old deserves the label in the United States technically. Furniture mostly falls into this age category. However in European Standards, an item is said to be antique if it was made (most likely handily made) before 1832 and during the Industrial Revolution.

To further support the previous statement, an old item, like antique picture frames, can be considered either as an antique, vintage or a collectible item. Take note of the following:
• You can call an item a vintage item if its age ranges from over 40 years of age. You cannot call a 20 year old item vintage.
• Vintage and antique can be collectible items. So, there is no age bracket in collectible items.

Antique wooden furniture

Age issues of items becoming antiques also depend on the items. One additional fact to know is that in automobile, you can consider it an antique if it reaches over 25 years of age. This is based on the definition given by most of the worldwide organization and the Antique Automobile Club of America. They based it on a fact that a car reaching the age of 25 years, is very hard to economically maintain and thus is considered a rare survivor; reaching this age is as twice as the design life of any modern car.

When it comes to firearms, there is what they call a threshold or a cut-off year. In the United States for example, guns made before 1899 are considered to be antiques and in every nation, the thresholds varies. Antiques are works of art and they are timeless master pieces. Spending a lot for antiques is not a waste of money at one point.