It was my understanding that Vintage items can only increase in value over time, never decrease, due to two factors:
-- You can no longer obtain items of Vintage quality and have not been able to do so since September 30th, 2010. In that sense, there was a set amount of Vintages from that date forward but...
-- ...As time draws on, the number of Vintage items that exist worldwide diminish due to factors such as Crafting, Deleting, etc. As time passes, the amount of Vintage items total decreases.
Although it is true that the overall number of Vintages that exist may not have been affected by this retirement announcement, the demand for the retired items, regardless of their quality (Vintage, Non-Vintage, etc) will increase greatly. It is my understanding that Vintage quality is of higher value, coupled with the spike in demand for retired items, this would make a Vintage Retired item of more value than A Non-Vintage Retired item (and a Genuine Retired Item being of more value than those two, should it exist in future retirement updates).
Wait, wut?