Okay, humor me a little bit…
I have been a member of AAPK for over 10 years there have probably been at least six or eight discussions of what the word “vintage” means in relationship to cutlery.
So one more time I will
Words are tools for communication to exchange information and ideas. If we desire to do that accurately we need to use words that have been agreed upon definition. We can either use existing words that already have a meaning that we all agree upon or we can invent new words.
What we have here with “antique” and “vintage” is a third option which is borrowing words and using them in the context for which they were never intended. This has left us all confused as to the meaning of these words.
The word vintage is or was primarily related to the winemaking industry.
From Wikipedia, the definition of vintage is: “A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year.”
The link below takes you to a chart of 2016 vintage wines:
http://www.winemag.com/wp-content/uploa ... t_2016.pdf
The term is essentially a winemaking term. The history of the word goes back more than 500 years. Also from Wikipedia: “The word vintage was first used in the early 15th century. It was taken from the Old French vendage, meaning wine harvest. This word was taken from the Latin vinum (wine) and demere (to remove).
Obviously the word vintage is not a good fit in the world of cutlery, unless someone can show me a knife made from grapes that were grown or harvested in a single specified year.
The Wikipedia definition of antique:
“An antique (Latin: antiquus; "old", "ancient") is a collectable item, at least 100 years old. It is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human society.
It is common practice to define "antique" as applying to objects at least 100 years old.”
Wikipedia does make an exception for the term antique when applied to automobiles-
“In the United States, an antique car is generally defined as a car over 25 years of age, this being the definition used by the Antique Automobile Club of America.”
The words we use to describe things around us often derive their meaning from the context in which we use them. We all know the eBay seller who lists a knife as “vintage knife” is trying to convey the idea that this particular piece of cutlery has a certain amount of age to it.
If the knife being described is a pre-World War II Remington we we generally understand and accept the usage of the term “vintage knife” in that context.
When another seller, (or perhaps the same one), lists a brand new Chinese made Old Timer as a “vintage knife” there is something that rises up inside of us and want to call “BS” on that application of the term “vintage knife.”
Returning to my original premise that words are tools for communication to exchange ideas and information, I would repeat that we have a need for terms upon which we all agree when applying said terms to the age of various knives.
Antique is a perfectly acceptable term if we all agree upon what it means; an item that is 100 years or more in age. That will be fine here on AAPK if all of us agreed to use that term properly. The conflict arises when we go to eBay or anywhere else where the people have not agreed with us and our definition of the term. They may refer to a Camillus with a no line tang stamp as an “antique knife.” Obviously a knife made in the 1940s is not quite an antique yet.
If we choose to use the term “vintage” and apply it to cutlery; well this topic to which we are posting and the previous topic which I linked earlier are proof of our confusion! The application of a winemaking term to cutlery collecting has given rise to a great deal of confusion and several discussions of the term “vintage.”
I don’t think this is an issue we will ever solve simply because it involves not only all of AAPK but all knife collectors, knife sellers and practically everyone else in the world.
I think we will continue to use imprecise and inaccurate terms because they are familiar and while inaccurate they do communicate a certain sense of age when applied to a pocket knife.
We can be informed when we purchased knives that the term “vintage” does not have a certain age attached to it like the word “antique” does. Even though the word “antique” does infer a certain age, we should be mindful that most people will not use the term properly.
What has this discussion accomplished? Absolutely nothing, the same thing the previous six or eight similar discussions before it.
Perhaps when Bernard Levine or someone of equal or greater cutlery knowledge writes a “Dictionary of Cutlery Terms” then we will have a definition of cutlery terms that we can all agree upon. Which still does not solve the problem of sellers on eBay who cannot or will not take time to properly research the knife they’re selling or because they just don’t care.
So if you are buying a knife somewhere and the seller says the knife is “vintage” or “antique” you should take a little advice in Latin:
caveat emptor! 
A couple other pieces of advice regarding the purchase of old cutlery:
1 – “Read the knife.” – Bernard Levine
2 – “Buy the knife, not the story.” – anon
I don't use the word "vintage or antique". Knives are not from a vineyard so I prefer to try and put a approximate date of manufacturing on them. or at least a range of years it was made. Let the buyer call it what they want. 
Some knives are like me and just "old".LOL There just isn't any meaning to the word in the knife world. 