About Antiques to Vintage

Antiques to Vintage

Overview

Antiques to Vintage, published under the full title Antiques to Vintage & Everything In Between, is an Australian magazine for collectors of antiques and collectables, produced quarterly from Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales mid-north coast. Each issue runs to 116 pages, according to the publisher's own description, filled with features on specific objects and makers, collecting news and tips, fair and auction coverage, and hundreds of items offered for sale by advertisers across Australia. The editor and art director is Julie Carter, whose family has published the magazine in its successive forms since 1984. The Spring 2026 issue was the title's 100th, a milestone the magazine marked by recounting a history that reaches back to 1980 — making the current magazine the latest incarnation of one of Australia's longest-running collecting publications. It is published by JAM Consulting & Design Pty Ltd, a small family company, and appears in both print and digital editions. The publisher describes it as "Australia's No. 1 magazine for anyone with an interest in antiques, collectables and collecting in general" — its own claim, presented as such — and its website, carrying the strapline "Australia's premier antique & collecting magazine since 2004", promotes the current issue, fair listings and an archive of past articles.

History

As Julie Carter recounted in the magazine's Winter 2026 issue, the story began in 1980, when Sydney antique dealer Neville Byrne decided to create a magazine to sell antiques. He named it the Illustrated Antique Trader and modelled it on the classified-style Trader Boat: a monthly packed with hundreds of items with descriptions and prices and the occasional editorial piece, printed in black and white apart from a vibrant orange cover, colour printing still being prohibitively expensive. The Trader was an instant success, but by 1984 Byrne had had enough of the pressure of a monthly schedule and was thinking of closing it. Alan Carter bought the magazine instead; the April 1984 issue was the first produced by the Carter family, and Alan promptly added colour pages — over Byrne's protests during the handover that colour would ruin it. From 1984 to 2004 the Illustrated Antique Trader underwent occasional upgrades and name tweaks, its production moving from waxed galleys, scalpels and Letraset to computer typesetting in the late 1990s, while the family also built the Giant Antiques Fairs, a series in the late 1980s and 1990s that took in every state capital, Darwin included, and around which many dealers organised their trading year. In September 2003 Alan Carter's business partnership ended and it appeared there would be no more magazine. His daughters Julie and Christine Carter decided to produce it themselves: they relaunched it in February 2004 as Antiques and Collectables for Pleasure & Profit, initially bi-monthly, and the magazine was later retitled Antiques to Vintage & Everything In Between, moving to its present quarterly rhythm. The 100th issue of the current series appeared in Spring 2026.

Programming and Content

Each quarterly issue mixes long-form features on individual collectables and their histories with regular departments. Recent features have ranged over Cartier clocks, Mary Gregory glass, marcasite jewellery, Tunbridge ware, French faience pottery, the Rolex Explorer watch and the pottery of Bernard Moore; the Spring 2026 centenary issue added a retrospective on "100 years of collecting crazes" and perennial subjects such as Phar Lap memorabilia and the Minton peacock. Signature departments include the Curios column, a "What's Hot and What's Not" survey of market trends, Vintage Fashion and Mid Century Modern sections, and Paraphernalia, a buying section that in the centenary issue ran to 15 pages with more than 350 items for sale. A "Big Boom" column by US contributor Rod Labbe examines reproductions and reissues of sought-after collectables, and the magazine maintains close coverage of the antiques fair circuit — the editor's Autumn 2026 column surveyed a post-pandemic revival of fairs, with organisers expanding events and adding new ones to the calendar almost monthly. Letters to the editor, auction and fair listings and dealer advertising complete a format that remains deliberately close to the magazine's trading-post origins: part journal, part marketplace.

Audience and Reach

The magazine is aimed at Australia's collecting community in all its breadth — serious dealers and auction followers at one end, casual fossickers and vintage-fashion buyers at the other. Its editor writes of catering to items "from budget-busting statement pieces to inexpensive cute collectables", and its classified-style advertising connects buyers and sellers across the country in the tradition of the original Trader. No independently audited circulation figure is published. The magazine's longevity and its fair-circuit presence are its principal measures of reach: the Carter family's Giant Antiques Fairs shaped the national dealing calendar in their heyday, and the magazine's website now carries an archive of 1,000 past articles, sold as individual PDFs or downloadable free by subscribers, extending its content well beyond the quarterly print cycle. A subscription in 2026 cost $59 for four issues, with the publisher promoting early subscriptions with a free 2027 calendar.

Digital Presence

The website, antiquestovintage.com.au, promotes the current issue — at the time of writing, the Spring 2026 hundredth issue, with a free "sneak peek" preview hosted on a flipping-book platform — and carries fair listings, dealer features and a newsletter signup promising "quirky, interesting, fun and valuable news" by email. Its Articles Archive makes 1,000 past articles available as PDFs, free to subscribers. Full digital editions are sold through Zinio, where a single issue was listed at $9.89 and four issues at $36.29, and through Pocketmags. The magazine's social and web presence is modest compared with large publishers, consistent with a small family operation whose centre of gravity remains the printed quarterly.

Ownership and Organisation

Antiques to Vintage is published by JAM Consulting & Design Pty Ltd (ABN 63 163 222 759), based in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, and remains a Carter family business. Julie Carter is editor and art director; the masthead of recent issues lists photographers Willie Mobbs and Russell Winnell, Susan Leary sharing copy-editing and subscriptions duties, and Kirien Withers handling advertising enquiries. The contributing writers are a stable of specialists including Eric Bryan, Andrea Boltresz, Debra Palmen, Rod Labbe, Kylie Richards, Rose Docker, Sharon Dowley, John Frith, Sandra d'Angelo and Anne Schofield, together with Ian Spellerberg, author of a book on match holders, who contributes on his specialty. The magazine's long-serving advertising manager Craig Campbell, who sold advertising across more than eighty issues over twenty years, died shortly before the Winter 2024 issue, in which the editor paid tribute to him. It is a notably small team for a magazine of 116 pages per issue, and the editor's columns make clear that the family character of the enterprise — the current editor is the daughter of the man who bought the title in 1984, and her sister Christine co-founded its 2004 relaunch — is central to its identity.

Contact and Availability

Antiques to Vintage is published quarterly (Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer issues) by JAM Consulting & Design Pty Ltd. Subscriptions cost $59 for four issues and can be placed online at antiquestovintage.com.au or by post to Antiques to Vintage, PO Box 6900, Park Beach Plaza, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450. The office can be reached by phone on 02 6653 5727 and by email at info@antiquestovintage.com.au; editorial enquiries go to Julie Carter on the same phone number or at julie@antiquestovintage.com.au, and advertising enquiries to Kirien Withers on 0411 277 609. Digital editions are available through Zinio and Pocketmags, and the website offers a preview of the current issue and an archive of past articles.