To the left is a shot of my 1959 Les Paul Replica. If you click on the picture you can see the finish checking and the little ding above the pickup selector toggle that was applied by the builder. It’s light, so for me, it’s cool. But truth be told, I don’t really get the relic thing. Give me a nice, bright, shiny guitar, and I’ll be happy. In fact, though many of my guitars have dings on them or their metal is a little tarnished, I’m cool with that because I did the aging through gigging and recording. And I will also add that while I don’t actively try to prevent aging, I do take very good of my guitars and make sure I wipe them down after each gig or session, so even though some of my guitars have dings, they still look fairly new – even the older ones.
On the other hand, my very close friend Jeff Aragaki loves guitars that have been artificially aged. In fact, he once got a gloss ’59 historic, and buffed it down to age it slightly himself. My reaction was, “WTF did you do that for?” He just said that he prefers the well-used look. Of course, I’m totally cool with someone liking that, and will never dis anyone who likes artificially aged gear, but it’s not for me. I’d rather do the aging myself.
Do you get the “relic” thing? 🙂
Guitar Gear 