What Makes A Book Antique, Vintage, Rare, Or Collectible?

Vintage Books

When it comes to old books, there are a few key date ranges that affect supply, quality, and desirability of a collectible book. The first big key change was when the ISBN came out in 1970. Anything that has an ISBN bar-code was manufactured using modern mass printing techniques in a factory which means that there could be millions of copies of these books. So books manufactured after 1970 generally aren’t considered antique due to the massive supply of these books. Books produced from 1970 to 2004 are generally considered vintage. But why 2004? That’s because its twenty years ago on the dot. The twenty year rule applies well due to regularly changing styles in aesthetics, pop culture, and generational shift. Once an item becomes a relic of a different “generation” then it becomes vintage.

Antique Books

Antique books are books that belong to earlier times. But how long is that? It seems that everyone sets their own age with very little justification such as the people that claim its not an antique unless its a century old. We suggest using a couple other key dates to help determine if something is antique. There is a remarkable change in the supply of books after World War One and Two. There is also a softer date of the late 1800’s when America’s population boomed and subsequently became more stable, where we again see a sharp decline in supply. Many people used to use the turn of the century or 1900 as a marker for an antique book because of this reason. Then it transformed to around the “War Era” books as time passed. And now it seems as though the new key date is going to be 1970. Those books are already 54 years old and we would consider them to be antique and not vintage. However, there are people that are still in the past that will fight tooth and nail that a book isn’t antique unless it was born during the War. To them the 70’s was a just a couple decades ago though. But it doesn’t really matter if a book is antique or vintage; we want to know if its rare or collectible.

Rare Books

Rare books are books that had a “limited” run of copies made. Limited is a very subjective term. There are books with a 10,000 copy run that are printed nowadays but that much more than any copies of books made back in 1700. These limited runs are also why book collectors look for First Edition, First Printings of their favorite books; they are often short runs compared to the millions printed on the second printing. Antique books are almost all considered rare books. Vintage books are usually not considered rare. The thing to consider is that the older the book is the less surviving copies there are. So vintage books miss the mark because not enough of them have been recycled yet.

Collectible Books

Collectible books are literally any book. You could collect all 100 printings of a popular book if you wanted. Many people choose to collect what they view as valuable or what brings them joy. The rarity of the book tends to correlate with how valuable it is so you see a lot of people collect rare books. But there are people that just want to collect what brings them joy as well and that could mean collecting a bunch of seemingly worthless crime drama novels.