Relics are such an odd idea

I have to say, I don't really understand the whole relic thing, when it comes to guitars, especially when it comes to paying somebody thousands of pounds to smash up an expensive guitar for you.

Don't get me wrong, I would love an old Strat or Tele, a real one, just to see how different they are and how age has changed the wood and all that.

But paying a custom shop to build one for me just seems odd.
Call me the-son-of-a-war-baby, but if I'm going to spend thousands on a guitar,
I want a bloody new one.

So I find the whole idea strange, though in moments of self-awareness perhaps not that different to me making things out of really old tins and boxes - I've got a beautiful 1890s tin I'm going to turn into a multi-fx, by the way, but I digress.

So to be honest, apart from the Vintage Lemondrop, I never saw myself as interested in a relic or ever likely to buy one, or even have a go at making one.

The Lemondrop I would buy despite it being 'distressed' as it sounds amazing...

Well, until I came across this little site, The Relic Guitar Studio no less, where it really made a bit more sense. You see what I have realised is that most of the relics I have seen have basically been battered in a ham-fisted kind of way, and don't really look old as such.

Just knackered.

I mean, I bought a Jazzmaster in '89, and it has since been played a lot, I used it for gigs and it has generally been left in a gig bag or on a stand since. I'm not somebody that wraps anything in cotton wool. Over twenty years then it has been knocked over, dropped down stairs, got kicked off a stage, and being at the tender mercies of two dribbling babies who now aren't so small.

All in all then, it has lived a bit and has a few scars, dints and knocks to prove it. What it hasn't got is a back that looks like it has been attacked with a radial sander, or 'comfort curves' to match. The colour has changed from white to a sort of dirty cream, and I think the neck is probably a bit more yellowed than it used to be, but generally, in a foto it still looks pretty good, and not so bad in person. It's lasted better than I have.

Now, bearing in mind that at no point in history would you say that your average Tele or Strat was a throwaway kind of purchase for your average musician, why is it that people think that these guitars would all of been absolutely battered for the intervening forty or fifty years? Wear and tear, that I can understand, and wanting a guitar that plays and looks like it has been around for a while, again, I can understand. Most people buy jeans that have been pre-washed after all.

But the site I mentioned has changed my mind about whether relics can really look the part or not, as looking through their guitar bodies and necks, they just look, well, old.

Old and well used, like real guitars.

And the marks where it looks as though a scratchplate has been removed, looks like my Jazzmaster when I take off the scratchplate, and the colours of the paint are perfect, and the way paint ages is just right and shows an amazing attention to detail. And that is it - an attention to detail that means the end product simply looks perfect.

And despite vowing never to buy a guitar again, I might just have to bend a little and buy some pre-aged -I can't bring myself to say relic - parts and make my own authentic looking guitar.

And most of all they do a Hendrix Monterey Strat, which is lovely, and beloved and would look dead handsome and a bit more lovely in my arms.

And if I had the money I would click on the 'Buy Me Now' button right-now-this-moment.

But I don't,
so maybe I will have to try and make my own after all
or save up some pennies
or sell a kidney
or three
on ebay.

*sigh*

Back to the Purple Paze

The Relic Guitar Studio is HERE

If anybody wants to buy me a Monterey Strat, CLICK HERE