Are old flip phones genuinely vintage now, or am I being nostalgic?
I like to check Facebook Marketplace regularly.
I’m awful at social media (this I happily inform anyone who bothers to ask, the end result of using socials for my 9–5 for several years, back before Facebook was full of ads and when Instagram’s algorithms still made sense, and I’ve just never regained my enthusiasm for it). Facebook Marketplace however is my exception and is bizarrely something I almost excel at (if it were possible to ‘win’ at Marketplace, I’d consider myself quite decent at it).
My preferred searches are for old, second-hand furniture, probably quite predictably with the search term ‘vintage’ or ‘antique’ against it. I typically have a shortlist of items I’m actively ‘hunting’ for — at the moment I’m looking for some “attractive-to-me” timber bedside tables preferably with a nice patina and some character, some vintage stepped or ‘waterfall’ shelves, and I have a fondness for collecting interestingly shaped old, bevelled mirrors.
Occasionally my searches extend to other “definitely don’t need but might be nice-to-haves”, like my recent search for a second kayak, which led me to looking at and learning a bunch of random things about second-hand jet skis. I haven’t purchased a jet ski (yet!?) but it was absolutely an unexpectedly enjoyable experience.
The jet skis though didn’t come close to the surprise of seeing a Motorola Razr ‘Flip’ Phone (in an alarmingly bright purple) listed for sale at the top of the page the other day, attempting to convince interested buyers of its’ ‘vintage’ pedigree.
These phones were sold between 2004–2008ish with a couple of different models. I’m pretty confident that I had one at one point, although I think mine might have been hot pink…. they were incredibly common at the height of their popularity. It's funny to think that not so long-ago, people went wild for these phones.
The Razr was one of the most popular on the market at the time because they were ‘razor thin’ at a time when the market was pushing to get mobiles thinner and smaller. Following the brand’s initial successes, it rolled them out in an array of colours (hence my hot pink one), and even released a limited-edition Dolce and Gabbana version. Presently, the Razr has been updated, modernised, and is a genuine smartphone now (I won’t comment on the current versions’ quality however, I’ve not used them).
What fascinates me though is the idea that this bright purple phone I saw on Marketplace that isn’t quite 20 years old, might be considered by some as ‘vintage’.
So I wondered, what precisely constitutes a ‘vintage’ item? What qualities or age should something possess before it achieves this label? Is there a clearer definition than my mental assumption of “probably older than the 80s”? Why of course!
According to The Collector, items that are labelled vintage or antique can be qualified as the following:
Antiquities — items from ancient civilisations
Antiques — items that are at least 100 years old
Vintage — items from the 1900s to 1960s
Retro — items from ‘recent nostalgia’ 1960s to 1990s
While I’m comfortable with this breakdown, there doesn’t seem to be a complete consensus on this.
The Merriam-Webster definition for vintage (excluding its relevance to wine) is simply “of old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality | Classic”, or “dating from the past | Old, Outmoded, Old-fashioned”.
Homes and Antiques offers a date range that suggests for an item to be considered vintage, items should be more than 20 years old, and less than 100 years old.
Based on the Homes and Antiques definition, I’d consider the Motorola isn’t quite vintage just yet, but I can comfortably say that I am. (I’m conveniently ignoring the Merriam-Webster suggestion of being “of recognised and enduring interest/importance/quality” for the sake of referring to myself as vintage here).
I’ll continue to take tags of “vintage” with a grain of salt and question them from time to time. In this case at least, I experienced a genuine touch of nostalgia a good laugh and a mild shock, realising it’s been about 15 years or more since the old flip phones were all the rage.
