Let’s talk relics

There's crazy good money in these limited edition guitars with a small but enthusiastic fan base. Release the right number and they all pay through the nose and gobble up what is there, then don't keep making them because they'll just sit on racks after that. Find another artist/niche, wash/rinse/repeat.

I don't mind relics... I don't like it when they go crazy and suddenly you have to clean rust off just to make it playable, and they also never really look like actual vintage guitars. Actual vintage doesn't rust/wear through nearly as fast as you'd think, and tend to look more dingy than worn and aged. But I like it, in the same way I like "antique" looking furniture even if it isn't convincingly antique looking, or "aged bronze" or whatever. Part of that is my aesthetic sense... give me lightly finished wood, natural brick, worn leather, long before bright colors or fancy lighting. I was in the minority on a similar thread a while ago about a Martin guitar that was a "relic" sort of thing, but more in the style of "antique finish" on a flatpack Target bookshelf. It didn't look remotely vintage, but it looked nice to me. No one else agreed.

They went way over the top with this one, IMO. But, it’s advertised as a replica so I guess that’s what Mike McCready’s 1960 Strat looks like.

I don't think it would be practical to just take the 2nds and put them in a "relic" pile - something with a thick polyester finish won't turn into a relic easily, I'm sure they need to plan that from the beginning.

But, it is a nice accident that the QC process is entirely different.  It is very hard to take a guitar out of the finish department, get it assembled, setup, packed, shipped without any dings/scratches/signs it has ever been touched.  I'm sure if you're working in certain departments you LOOOVE when the roadworn/relic stuff comes through and it feels like a mini-vacation to not have to stare at every square inch with a magnifying glass.  Rework is always a good sized expense (that is often not well tracked), and I'm sure it goes way down when a batch of roadworn goes through, since dings/scratches/sand-through is going to be much less of a problem (but probably not never).  As to the aforementioned point, they can probably go straight to spraying color instead of a primer coat or whatever, so the time spent in the finish department is probably less. 

Whether all of this is enough to offset the time spent on the relic process, I have no idea.  It isn't fast to do that, especially if you're duplicating a specific worn instrument, when wear patterns have to be mapped out and sized appropriately.  I saw a video of someone wearing down a pair of jeans once, and I was surprised to see them done one at a time... the jeans put onto a sort of mannequin, and they had paddles with sandpaper stuck to them and rubbed in the worn spots.  I'm sure there are some short cuts for guitars, and it probably varies who is doing it.  I've heard stories of people sitting and carving in check marks in lacquer with an x-acto, one at a time.  My guess is that if you do it enough you'll come up with a toolbox of janky scrapers/sanding blocks that mimic certain wear really easily and you can eventually crank through them.  Like that big gouge on the Mike McCready above the neck pickup - shape a steel scraper on a metal grinder to the right size, and you could probably hog it out to the correct size/depth pretty fast, and then finish it off with smaller tools after.

Maybe not the custom shop, but in this instance, for example, who knows? It’s a MIM.

Also, never seeing one in person (that I recall), I assume a relic would be pretty easy to spot because I assume, again, they rough it up before the put poly coat on, right?

I actually think it would be more likely on a Custom Shop:

1) moving a production order from one SKU/BOM/Build spec to another would be a real pain in the butt in Ensenada, but in the Custom Shop would be far less effort. The labor time just on the administrative back end is probably silly.
2) A MIM "relic" would have to be planned early to have the right wood filler/primer/whatever so it can be sanded through to look right, and I guarantee it isn't even remotely worth the effort to take something and strip it entirely to turn it into a relic. A CS that got sprayed sunburst to look new or like new that gets dinged could much more easily be turned into a heavy relic. I doubt much would have to be changed, but I could be wrong on that.
3) Cost of original materials will be higher on CS. Probably not as much as you'd think (they're not finding unicorn alder trees picked for maximum toneyness or anything), but the difference is probably still there. It is probably so low on MIM stuff that prior to adding hardware and electronics all the cost of the in-production instrument is probably in labor anyway materials might be under twenty bucks, so adding more labor instead of just tossing it in the trash makes little sense. That birdseye neck or super light ash body might be worth hanging onto to turn into something else, though.

My guess is that they don't do it at the CS though... at least not anymore. Back when there were "master builders" and the guys in there had more creative control, I can totally see there being a corner of the shop that was a graveyard that would occasionally have stuff pulled out to make new instruments to build and send out into the wild. After the end of that era, the middle managers would probably freak at that idea. They'd want it all to be discussed in a million zoom meetings first and god only knows what else.

Sorry, I'm giving longer answers than anyone probably wants... hahaha. I've worked in two factories (and a third non-MI one), and have had friends/co-workers who came from other factories, so it is easy for me to imagine.

IMO, the relic thing is somewhat purchased street cred.


In my youth our jeans wore out in all the right places through honest wear. I can’t wrap my mind around buying them brand new like that. I’d feel like a poser.

But I did enjoy building that relic Strat a couple years ago. It’s a different sort of mindset.

My gigging guitars looked like when I bought them except for any willful additions/changes.

I don't wear down finish, I don't scratch up stuff.

My arctic white Gibson is going banana, but is otherwise near mint save some fretwear. They're all like that. The poly guitars too.

The fretboards have all darkened on the rosewood or granadillo boards too from ..being played.

Not dyeing.

The only 'chip' in any of them is on my Jazz bass, where I knocked out a moron's teeth with it when he climbed on stage past security.

Went straight through the uber-thick early 90s Mexi poly finish to the wood.

I touched it up with black model paint afterwards - you can see it if you're holding it or right next to it, but....at stage distance, nope.

I never personally liked the relic thing since the days it started nearly 30 years ago. But I think the current trend of ultra heavy relics with other colors underneath is just ridiculously fugly. Don't get me wrong, it's a good moment in the universe when somebody falls madly in love with a guitar and there is clearly a big market of people with deep pockets for them, but I am absolutely not in that market demographic.

I'm just thankful that acoustic guitar and amplifiers never went there.

Now if y'all'll excuse me, I see a cloud that needs a good shouting at.

"Yeah, but it's an exact replica of the wear on Stevie Ray's #1."  

"How do you feel about new beat up guitars?"


OK, here's my official summary on the subject.

I have no aversion to relics that would make me "hate" them to the point of belittling people who do. Ya know, posers who just can't play their durn guitars for 90 years in smoke filled bars. People can do whatever to their guitars, whether it's painting them chartreuse, put stickers all over them, or distress them to varying degrees of authenticity. Just like they can do whatever they want to their bodies, be it ink, hardware, etc.

The level of irritation I've seen makes me think that some feel that every time a relic is born a vintage guitar somewhere loses its "mojo". I think disliking something as a "not for me" thing is normal. When it evokes such a response that people are inclined to belittle the owner, I think it merits some introspection.

Relics don't bother me, I get the connection. A dude goes to a guitar show and sees a bunch of vintage instruments and regrets not keeping that x guitar from 1950-something. Ah, a replica, a tribute to vintage guitars. Even if the "experts" deem the wear isn't very authentic looking, or looks like some kid used a belt sander then dragged it behind his car for a spell.

I don't think I'd buy a relic guitar, at least not the heavy Rory Gallagher type. I would consider one with light treatment, like a "closet clean" with some checking and aged hardware. Several of my homebrews have that treatment. One has more wear, only because I wasn't happy with my refin and I had idle hands and was bored. A frivolous endeavor. I don't stand in front of a mirror with the guitar convincing myself I'm Keith Richards. I don't try fooling other people it's an actual vintage instrument.

People find "art" in things. Old stuff has an appeal whether it's a distressed piece of furniture, torn jeans or, a relic'd guitar.

Play em if you got 'em, those pristine guitars, those vintage ones with nary a nick, those truly played and worn ones, the ones covered in stickers or those with artifical wear that just doesn't seem real to some of us.

I think Dr. Suess summed up the subject somewhere with his "Sneetches" series.


And I don't mean any of you, I'm reflecting back to the days of Harmony Central and the FDP when the subject would inevitably go off the rails.  

I’ve read of “sunbursts gone wrong” that would be sprayed over with a solid color and later wear would reveal that- but is it such a common thing to justify so many relics mimicking this?

I’m not a relic fan, other than I keep reading that some sound phenomenal, but that too is subjective. My two Strats, being poly, have scratches and some chips missing from honest use, but don’t relic near as nice. A friend’s Highway 1 MIA Strat has some cool honest down-to-the-wood relicing from use, but they are nitro I believe.

I am curious about Wildwood’s Relic-Ready guitars. That’s probably the way I’d go if looking for new today.

I do somehow like the idea of a guitar that visually appears to be worn completely out ... but plays and sounds like a dream.

I like to look at MJT's Ebay auctions every now and then, looking for a specific offering (opaque 3 tone sunburst Strat body, <4 lbs, alder with no relic'ing and tight burst edges). The solid color over sunburst relics always seem to go for top dollar, so it must be a popular choice for the relic fans. All I can say is that look has zero appeal to me. 🤷‍♂️

I believe I've seen some Martin acoustics with relic'ing.  Nope, not my thing.  Funny how that lands.  While I get the appeal of replicating wear on a Fender seeing the same treatment on a Les Paul makes me wince.