How old before vintage?

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Dale M

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How old would a piece of equipment have to be to become "vintage"? Like a car, at 20 years old it's an antique and at 40 it's a classic, at least that's how the Illinois DMV recognizes it for registration. At some point, if we continue diving our current gear it will be "vintage". Or does a piece of equipment become vintage solely based on the fact that it's obsolete? Some things can be obsolete if just a few short years. Let's say a mfr goes out of business, does their equipment become vintage immediately?
 
Vintage is usually considered Two Hose Regulators, or Single Hose Regulators that where designed before Octopus, SPGs, and BC Power inflators. It is also as much a style of diving as the equipment itself. When I dive vintage it is often without a BC, my tank mounted to a backpak, and using a J Valve, instead of an SPG. That's how I learned to dive, more years ago than I care to admit. If I use a BC it is a horsecollar.

Somebody else jump in and help me explain this.
 
The term "vintage" when applied to diving gear remains a very subjective concept. There's some consensus that the mid-1970s represent the dividing point between vintage and modern, but I expect there would be as many different answers to your question as there are people diving vintage.

I can't speak for regulators, as I'm into vintage snorkelling, not SCUBA, but my take on vintage fins is that they must be made from natural or neoprene rubber to qualify. Plastic-bladed fins with thermoplastic elastomer foot pockets don't qualify as vintage. As for masks, true vintage models come with rubber skirts, not silicone (yes, I do know that very expensive silicone-skirted masks existed before 1975 for the benefit of the few with allergies, but they're the exception, not the rule). For me, beavertails typify vintage wetsuits, while I always associate vintage drysuits with the wearing of "long johns" for warmth and unlined sheet rubber for watertightness.

Some, if not all, of these items of equipment are still manufactured nowadays, although you may have to find an online retailer in another country to complete the modern vintage/retro/classic ensemble. I prefer vintage snorkelling with new gear rather than somebody else's cast-offs, so I keep a look out for "new old stock" that has been in storage and never been sold, once picking up a late-1950s "Skooba Totes" vintage drysuit this way to complement replica suits of modern manufacture. There are more than seventy models of full-foot rubber fins still produced worldwide and there are still about a dozen blue rubber-skirted masks available around the world to complement the dozens of black rubber skirted versions still being made. I will tend to use such modern "retro" fins and masks when I snorkel nowadays, not least because they are easier to replace if a big wave carries them off, something that has happened to me on two separate occasions.

My advice is just to enjoy collecting and using old-style equipment rather than trying to define "vintage" too narrowly. Those items that can be dated pre-1975 can be regarded in some ways as historical artefacts, milestones in the history of our great sport. Some of us would prefer to linger at, and with, those milestones rather than accept uncritically the latest equipment which may be technologically advanced but may also be aesthetically unappealing to people who appreciate good classic designs more than the performance claims in magazine advertorials.
 
Vintage can be any time period. Usually when thinking of diving, I generally think of anything that was in use when double hoses were common. That will include the rare single hose and horse collar BCs. When I dive vintage, it's usually with a double hose, a steel 72 with a J valve, a wind up bezel watch, oval mask, boots, swimsuit and duck feet. I don't use a BC or a pressure gauge. I'd love to find an old depth gauge. Sometimes, I'll wear an SOS Decompression Meter.
 
When many of us talk about vintage diving we mean Pre-1974 and we are using "vintage" in the sense of an era like the "Muscle Car" era or the "Sea Hunt" era or the "Double Hose" era etc. No matter how many years pass, a 1998 Hyundi will never be a muscle car from the Muscle Car Era and no matter how many years pass, poodle jackets and plastic TUSA regulators and EMT scissors will NEVER be Vintage Era scuba equipment.

N
 
Vintage is anything before the day that the first pink wetsuit came out.:rofl3:
 
How old would a piece of equipment have to be to become "vintage"? Like a car, at 20 years old it's an antique and at 40 it's a classic, at least that's how the Illinois DMV recognizes it for registration. At some point, if we continue diving our current gear it will be "vintage". Or does a piece of equipment become vintage solely based on the fact that it's obsolete? Some things can be obsolete if just a few short years. Let's say a mfr goes out of business, does their equipment become vintage immediately?

But I will add, welcome to vintage, there is plenty of vintage gear out there to select from and you don't have to be "vintage" yourself to be a vintage diver. We are vintage "equipment" divers, not vintage "old" divers. Welcome. N
 
Maybe at some point in the future I would go vintage but for now I just want to get some dives under my belt. I was just curious as to what may or may not classify as vintage gear. I like the pink wetsuit comment though. :rofl3:
 
But I will add, welcome to vintage, there is plenty of vintage gear out there to select from and you don't have to be "vintage" yourself to be a vintage diver. We are vintage "equipment" divers, not vintage "old" divers. Welcome. N

Some of you may qualify as only vintage "equipment" divers, but I'm afraid I qualify in both categories now :wink: Oh, and I think AMF Voit had colored wetsuits out even before there were nylon-lined wet suits, if my memory serves me (which it might not on this matter).

SeaRat
 
Black is more modern than vintage, JMO, :

Gray hoses, blue mask:

7ACF6E433D37470C8EC489B056B387AA.jpg


White tank, blue pack:

9566F7384DC5463C84E59492B32705D2.jpg


Silver suit and blue mask:

seahunt.jpg


Psychedelic man:

56585864_o.jpg


It is a world of color:

23e8_1.jpg


Yellow suit and orange suit and blue suit:

9f16_1.jpg


Black is not vintage, it is just, well, black.

N
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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