I think if you like the relic look you're better off doing it yourself.
I couldn't bare the thought of going at my strat with sander though!

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1998 50th Anniversary American Deluxe Strat

I couldn't bear the thought of drunkenly dropping my strat off stage either, but it didn't stop me.

Oddly just one tiny ding on the back of the headstock. I still chuckle when I see it, and that was 10 years ago. Glad nothing else happened to it.(It didn't even go out of tune.)

My strat has a couple other dings, and I remember them all. I kind of feel relicing is like counterfeiting experience. I remember the first time I saw a picture of Rory Gallagher and his strat, and thinking `Wow there`s a guitar with some miles on it!!!` Seems a bit insincere to try replicate that look, rather than that blood,sweat and tears.

It takes a lot more than a couple of goes with a sander to relic a guitar. Look at how tacky the chinese relics look. CS do make a phenomenal job of relic'ing guitars. How the forearm contour wears down and shows the layers of paint for instance. The knocks in all the right places, and non of the wrong ones. There is a difference between relic and wreck. If you dont believe me take a sander to a cheap guitar, then whip it with a bike chain a few times each side and kick it down the garden. It wont look like a relic.
Trust me i've done it.

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No no and no

That '62 is one of the nicest I've seen, Alain. Congratulations on a truly fine piece there. I have a 1962 myself, but yours is in somewhat better condition. Why can't we stay in that pocket? What a privilege to see someone care for an instrument so well over so many years! THAT'S what it's all about, folks. Advocate more of that type of thing Alain, not beating up marginally worthy pieces to make them appear vintaged.

"...and beating up a guitar for the sake of perceived antiquity is a bit daft now, isn't it...?" EC

Personaly I relic a strat that I paid 300.00 for I think I over did it though it looks like it spent a night with Courtney Love. I wanted it to look like how I was feeling at the time which is old and beat-up, so when I play it I don't worry about how it's looking but more about what it is sounding like. I put some 62 pups in it and 11's and I bend the @#%$ out of them, and I feel young again.

I agree with you Niki, if a man wants a very nice relic from the custom shop so be it. They do a wonderful job and it's his money. I can't believe this and the versus posts are still going on. I would never criticize anyone's choice of guitar, it's a personal thing and you don't need someone else's advice or permission. I'm just happy that all are happy with their choice and want them to enjoy it. Period.

No on relic guitars. I would rather have the same guitar in pristine condition.

i guess the best way to make friends is to say you love Fender CS relic guitars,and you own a Gibson Les Paul Robot guitar ,and it too is an awsome guitar ,the tunning mechanism works great,and is a joy to play

if i were to pay a high price for
a new guitar which look old
i rather buy a poorly looked after second hand guitar
for a cheaper price

do not mind if others get them
but i would not get one myself

Too true. Everyones decision is their own. There is a difference between a relic'd guitar, a ruined guitar and a played to death guitar. Get up close to the instruments and you can see the differences. Take the neck on my partsocaster. Its been played for 2 or 3 hours nearly every day for the last 13 years. Its on its last legs fretwise, the fingerboard edges are starting to splinter. Its nearly scalloped from fingerboard wear (exaggeration to point out wear). The back of the neck is lumpy. It doesnt look relic'd, when you handle it though you can tell its very played. My chinese pete green copy on the other hand is relic'd cheaply and ruined because of it. Theres no shine to the wear spots, the frets aren't rounded. The fingerboard edges are sharp, as are the body edges. I believe what the customshop do is age the instrument visualy correct and physicaly leave it on the verge of being 'broke in'. So when you get it, it looks the part (depending upon your choice of finish) and feels not too far off being a guitar you've owned for a decent while.

On the subject of not believeing this thread is still running, i think its like the anarchist/mtv scenario.
Whilst gigging with a punk band, we toured with a bill of well known and not so well known bands. One particularly obnoxious cretin was drunk and shouting his mouth off about 'he'd never appear on mtv'. All for the benefit of charlie harper (singer with the uk subs), who had just had some minor mtv play and who's band was headlining the bill. Anyway old Charlie (66 at the time) was way too much of a gent to say anything. The singer of my band went over to this ignoramus and stated, 'you dont want to be on mtv, lucky for you that there not knocking on your door then'.

The point being.
The guy couldnt say for sure what he'd do if mtv did come a knockin, Its easy to refuse something you've never been offered. likewise, you could knock relic's all day long. If somebody gave you one, would you refuse it because of its battered appearance. You could give me a customshop jazzmaster, hell even a bass, i may even play it. Would i go out and buy a CS 56 strat, white blonde or hotrod red closet classic on a ash body. NO, it would be a push to afford it for the foreseeable future and I'm just not ready for one. I dont gig much, i hate recording. Why do i need such a instrument, the hotrod and partso do fine for now.

BTW if anyone wants to give me a 56 CC strat get intouch through my myspace page.

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No no and no

To me... my Telecaster is a tool to make music. When it was new, I used to wipe it down and shine it up. After awhile, though it started getting belt rash and a couple dings here and there. The bridge has a little rust because the little cover gets in the way when I mute the strings. There's a little rust spot on one of the tuners where I hit something hard and damaged the chrome... And I really had to get used to each bit of damage.

But, in all the years I've owned it I realized that no one really cares what it looks like. They come out to hear the music. That's it. All this other custom shop and relic stuff... all this vintage market stuff is all about money and nothing more. Fender can't make any money from the vintage market, so they need to invent their own.

And in my opinion, that's what all three markets have in common... they're all bogus.

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"...The final truth is, there is no truth..." - (from "Nice n' Neat" by the Boomtown Rats)

While I realize that there might be some people who would rather have the "look" of a seasoned player by owning a guitar that looks road worn and beat en, I would much rather place each and every scar on my instrument myself! Each nick, every cigarette burn, each beer stain mark, the chip in the pick guard, is another testament to the relationship that my guitar and I have. I would hate to receive am instrument with someone else' "emotional scars" on it. I would never be able to call it mine because I wouldn't know the in's and outs of it, how that mark got there, what was going on the day this scratch occurred etc. A guitar is a VERY personal thing, people buy them and customize them to their liking, after they've grown accustomed to each other, then it's like when someone call you outside to go somewhere, it's a nice day and you COULD wear those shoes you just bought three weeks ago, but since you're going with your friends and want to feel comfortable, you grab the same old dusty, worn out pair of shoes that you have had since college! They just "fit" you, and you know EXACTLY all about them. you know which has the hole towards the instep so that's the one you DON'T step into a puddle of water with...the same lies true with guitars, you know exactly which guitar will give you that sweet-creamy-in your face-mellow-jazzy-spankingly clear- bright-shrill-vibey-quack that you know and love, how can you know this if you haven't put it through it's paces throughout the years? I'm not saying there isn't a market for reliced instruments, but unless you have the bank account of Eric Clapton, it just doesn't make good financial sense to go and blow that much money on someone ELSE' "girl".

+1 here

Funny how a lot of people always get in queue to talk trash about relic's, usually it's the argument that it ain't 'real'
Let me tell you something friends, if you care that much about looks you're the ones that ain't 'for real'!
Playability is priceless, and that's whether it's a cheap Squier or a top of the line CS!

What I'm saying is, if you care about other musicians instruments you aren't playing your own enough

Here's an example I've stated before: I got a used CS 69 relic for 14.000 DKK, which is a couple thousand DKK cheaper than a new AM Vintage, Gibson LP or AM Deluxe, but the playability is in no way comparable, never have I layed my hands on a better playing and feeling guitar, and that is worth every penny in the world

OK, Hi everybody...I felt I had to sign up just to reply to this thread...

I've had a '91 Strat Ultra since 1992...a lovely instrument, although it's always been snubbed by vintage afficionados. At the time it was the only production-line Fender with an ebony fretboard, which appealed to me as I've been playing flamenco guitar for many years. I played it a lot in the first half of the '90s, but since then I've concentrated more on the flamenco side of things.

Recently (possibly due to the birth of my son about a year ago) I've been haunted by the feeling that I've allowed my rock'n'roll dream to die..! Man. We can't have that happen. The old Ultra has been duly hauled out, and many a happy hour has been spent noodling away after everyone else has gone to bed. Naturally, after a while I wondered what was happening in the electric guitar world these days, and before long I was fantasising about buying a new strat...after all, it's been over 16 years.

I was a bit puzzled by relics at first, sharing the sentiments of many who have posted here: "Man, those things are mid-life crisis machines for sure" was my thinking. Followed by: "Hang on, I've got a two-kid instant family with a bonus extra one plus a mortgage...I am the target market! I am sort of interested in this thing!"

Well, in brief I noticed a used '66 relic for sale at a place nearby that specialises mainly in genuine vintage guitars, and the price was fair (particularly when compared with the $60-100K guitars next to it on the wall) -- a though I'd pop in for a look, and if the relic job was dodgy I'd give it a miss. Man. When I went in there and they took it off the wall to hand it to me...as soon as my paw closed around the neck and I could feel how light it was compared to the trusty Ultra...I was going home with that guitar.

Now, I know I didn't ding it and wear away the finish...I didn't make the circular scuff marks around the tuning pegs(!), I didn't scratch the pickguard from repeatedly trying to balance the 3-way selector between positions and I didn't one day look down at my treasured instrument and notice a tracery of checking...but the moment I sat down with this thing I felt as if I'd reached into some parallel dimension where I had lived out my rock'n'roll dream for the past 20 years and retrieved my guitar. It just felt like mine, that's all I can say, to the point where I couldn't work out why "my" guitar felt weird...and then I remembered that the '60s fretboard radius is very different to that of the '90s. A couple of weeks on, and I can barely remember not having had this guitar.

So...if you have your doubts about relics...at least try to get your hands on one and see what you think. This '66 model didn't suffer much at all in comparison to the other (genuine vintage) '60s strats in that shop.

Phew...sorry about lengthy first post.

/edit...First responses from family were worth noting: 12-year-old step-daughter said "Holy hell, that is the most beautiful thing I have seen" -- I guess metallic teal green is better than flame maple sunburst to the youth of today -- and when I pulled it out and my one-year-old son wanted to play with it, my wife said "Aww, he wants to play, put it on the ground so he can reach it...it's all scratched up anyway..." I was thinking "erm, this is quite a valuable guitar , you know," but I let him have a go and ended up feeling fine about it. It's a very friendly guitar...I love it, but don't feel overly precious about it. Makes a nice change.