And probably a bit rhetorical too...

I'm not really sure why this crossed my mind the other day...I don't really care for the Road Worns at all and I'm certainly not considering getting one (I just don't get it) and I also typically don't think of guitars from a "money" stand point either, but as I was up at my local Guitar Center the other day an interesting thought crossed my mind. Now we all know that when it comes to genuine vintage guitars (or musical instruments in general), the better the condition, the more money it's worth. In other words, if someone had say two 1957 Strats and one of them was in near mint condition and the other was beat to hell...or at the very least had seen MANY nights on various stages and had the scars from many drunken roadies...the one in mint condition would be worth considerably more money (all other things being equal of course). Now you have these "Road Worn" guitars that are coming "pre-beat up" and it seems to me that 30 or 40 years down the road, it could be difficult for someone to tell what wear and tear on the instrument was genuine and how much of that came from the factory...wouldn't that make it a bit difficult for future collectors to make a fair appraisal?

I would think this would go double for a "relic"...since the Road Worns are mass produced, most of the wear patterns are quite similar (if not identical) from instrument to instrument. With a Road Worn there might be some record of what wear marks were "from the factory" for a potential collector to consider. The Custom Shop relics however...if I'm not terribly mistaken, each of those are unique in the way they have been "aged". Let's look at it this way...say you have 2 custom shop guitars, one of which is a relic the other is not. Let's say that both guitars have similar specs and such as well. In 40 years or so it seems that, if well taken care of, the non-relic would be worth more because it was in "better condition"...yes/no?

Anyways, I'm just being a bit cynical here and again this is probably a bit more rhetorical than anything else so please...no one put too much stock in it either way. The future will tell what the future will tell in any case...I just wanted to toss that thought out on the floor to see who stomps on it! LOL!

Peace,
Jim

we've kind of discussed this before. there are a ton of pictures of these relics. I think one will be picked as the 'gold standard' and used as a template for them to be compared to.

you'll see the future generation of cork sniffers debating, "no no no that wear on the arm contour looks like it was done with p-800 grit, everyone knows the real artistry was done with p-320 and p-600"

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I think it's safe to say that there aren't going to be serious collectors for the Road Worn series in 30-40 years. These are mass produced MIM guitars and will hold almost no value. I do however agree with you on the standpoint of the Custom Shop relicing process. It will be hard to tell in 20 years which is a real relic guitar and which is a pre-made relic guitar.

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2005 Fender American Stratocaster W/Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in bridge and Seymour Duncan SSL-5 in neck.
1995 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
Line 6 Spider II 150 watt head W/Ampeg 4x12 Cab
Laney Pro-Linebacker PL65R

With customshop guitars the finish type (relic,nos,CC) is on the COA if i'm not mistaken.

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No no and no

I thought I'd weigh in on this subject and bring up a past Strat that was derided at the time and now has some curiosity [and value] to collectors.

Anyone remember the '83 Standard? We've discussed them in other forums and I must say that I have an '83 SiennaBurst Strat that has seen a reverse bell curve of value in 25 years.

So, I think we could draw a comparison between the '83 Fender Edsel and the '09 Fender Pacer.

Shane~

It's probably that Dan Smith strat that has extended pickguard with a jack input on it, no tremolo hardtail.

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One of God's own prototypes. Too weird to live, too rare to die.

I don't have the Dan Smith Strat. I have a plain old '83 Standard. a blessing and a curse.

Quick recap - the '83 standard had one volume and one tone pot, the second tone pot was where they put the input jack. Strings were top-loaded into the tremolo [the "Free-Flyte" tremolo - a tuning nightmare]

This was the guitar that "Fender-Corporate" built when they decided that they didn't need any input from "Fender-Musician." It was a musical pariah.

Fast forward 25 years, just like the Edsel; the '83 has a cult following and has a small increase in value past the $500 we spent on it in the summer of 1983.

So, the correlation I was bringing was that players are looking at the Road-Worn series in the same way the '83 standard was looked upon by players back in the day.

Anything will have value when it is old enough - some things will just take longer than others. I think that's in the first Indiana Jones movie somewhere.

As a side note - I played the '60 Road-Worn strat at guitar center into a small Marshall combo amp; I liked it. It sounded much more full than a standard MIM, and rivaled the MIA Standard. Other than I want to be the one to put the dents and dings on the thing - I probably would have bought the thing.

I guess it boils down to this - I would have bought the guitar to be played, not collected. I am not a guitar collector, I am a guitar player. So the dings and dents don't really concern me as much as it would others. I don't mean to offend the player who looks for a guitar for those reasons. It's just how I am - I wouldn't avoid jamming with any one for a silly reason like that.

Shane~

where your comparison breaks down, in my opinion, is that your guitar is 1)somewhat rare, whereas there are a lot of road worns. 2) there weren't really a lot of other production alternatives, whereas the current crop has many models of strat. 3) the design of yours is somewhat unique-if unliked, from a layout point of view, whereas the RW's have a pretty standard layout as far as controls and such.

The outstanding feature of the RW series is its artificial wear, and by the time these guitars could become valuable will the wear distinguish itself from wear on the other varieties of Strat that offer a Nitro thinskin finish?

Roadworns may appreciate a bit, but I don't think any modern Strat will ever become as collectible as even those last gasp CBS strats. The HW1 has more to distinguish itself from the pack than the RW series, and I think even it has too high of a production run to ever really skyrocket as a collectible, certainly not within a 30 -50 year timeline like classic strats. having such high production runs means it will take much more time for enough guitars to be destroyed or lost to make them rare, but even in the 80's the production runs were of vastly smaller quantities than now, meaning it will take less time for them to become truly rare.

to focus on the last paragraph-- from the perspective you state, that the dings and scratches don't matter, then isn't it even more silly to pay for them?

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Hehe To paraphrase Mordecai Richler: Why be content to be a failure, when you can be an epic failure?

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I think lomi's is just wondering how a buyer in 25 years will decide a condition level for a value on a guitar that has been made to look as if it was abused and beat to crap out of. Whats additional wear and abuse whats factory? Are these 25 year old pickups that have been aged on are these new pickup that someone aged? They both show a artificial aging process possibly. It will only have a playability value to a player who likes the feel of it when played not much collector's value will be in any apprasal.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

and i guess your 100% positive about this also?

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sombody get me a doctor!