What Vintage?

     A while back I experienced the sublime joy and pleasant challenge that comes from building a craftsman kit. This was no ordinary kit – it was an HO scale model of an HO scale model – a 'tribute' kit to a box car skillfully built and whimsically lettered by John Allen of Gorre & Daphetid fame. Not only that, but this car is a throwback to earlier kit construction methods; it was made primarily of paper.

     Though the car ends, sides, roof and even the inner structure are made of paper, they were laser cut and printed. The underframe is cast resin, and details (the ones that weren't paper) are from Tichy and Grandt Line. That means full underbody detail with all the fiddly bits. Couplers? Kadee scale size, naturally. Trucks? Tichy arch bar.

     And another thing – this kit is now out of production and the manufacturer, sadly, out of business. The car I built is a 'Superior Detritus' box car offered by Full Circle Models. John Allen's original was a Central Valley box car kit. My kit was lettered (and weathered!) by computer. John's was lettered by hand.  Right-click and open this image in a new window for a REALLY big version:

     All this prompted me to ask, “Just what is 'vintage' anymore”? For example, is this piece of rolling stock, 'vintage'? If you define vintage as 'old', then the answer is no. After all, the kit is only a few years old. But if you didn't know how old it was, would it have that 'vintage' look? How does a model railroader define 'vintage'?

     Webster's listing for the word vintage includes three relevant definitions:

1. a collection of contemporaneous and similar persons or things
2. a period of origin or manufacture
3. length of existence 

     By one of these definitions you could say a boxcar kit produced in 2014 is 2014 vintage, like the model year on an automobile. This definition works for my detritus car too – it is a 2010 vintage kit.  But my car also fits another of Webster's definitions; the model represents a car built in the late 1800's. In that sense the period of origin or manufacture is not defined by the actual age of the model, but the perceived age of the car the model represents. So in this sense it is an 1890s vintage car.

     Even so, isn't this really dodging the question or escaping on a technicality? I get the feeling that 'vintage', to many modelers, represents that 'golden' era of American-made craftsman kits. You know, the ones that came with a tube of glue bearing the same name as the kit box, or similar boxes of wood and metal parts with printed car sides or decals to apply. Couplers? Take your pick – after all, you had to supply them. Trucks? If you were lucky they 'snapped' onto the bolster. These were kits from the 'vintage' era of model railroading, surely.

     I love those kits, (even though I am 1975 vintage, myself), and the Detritus car almost fits this definition also, doesn't it? It is no 'shake the box' kit. Though laser cut, it required a great deal of patience, time and craftsmanship to assemble. It is in fact, a model of a model built in that 'vintage' era. So my car is a 2010 vintage kit, representing a late 1800's vintage box car, based on a 1950's vintage model, built using a mix of 'vintage' and modern techniques. Whew! I'd say it's vintage all around, wouldn't you?