How old does something have to be to become an antique?
Answers:
100 years or more.
Other answers:
One hundred years. Before that it is a collectible.
One hundred years. Before that it is a collectible.
old enough to be worth just as much, or more than when it was originally for sale.
30 years and on
Depends on country to country. In India like most of the places it's 80-100 years.
I have been an antique and art appraiser for the past 30 years. I've found that the word "antique" can mean different things to different people.
For instance, 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 and many other organisations worldwide. However, the legal definition for the purpose of antique vehicle registration varies widely.
If you are a teenager, it may seem that something from the 1950's is antique. If you are 50 years old, you might think something antique is from the 1920's, because most people don't like to think of themselves as "antiques"!
The word "antique" is derived from the word "antiquity" - usually considered to be important relics from ancient times, such as the ancient Egyptians, or the Romans or Greeks. And among collectors of antiquities, it was not considered a true antique just because it was old - even if it was hundreds of years old.
To be called an "antique" the item had to also be of significant cultural, historical or aesthetic value. A two hundred year old rusty nail would not have been considered an antique, even though it was so old.
The most commonly repeated definition of an "antique" that we use today is really an arbitrary legal definition put into use by the United States Customs Service to determine whether a tax needs to be paid on items brought into the US from other countries. If it is 100 years old or more, an item is considered "antique" and no customs taxes are levied.
At the time the customs law was passed, c. 1930, they had to choose a date, so they chose 100 years in the past, which was also approximately the cutoff date for when objects began to be mass produced.
But they could have just as easily made the period 75 years or 150 years.