I know it's irrational and it's all down to personal taste and I know I'm the d!CK here but this is s safe space right?
Custom colour fender basses should have white/mint guards , look in the books , nearly all white guards , why oh why do people put tort on them, sunburst, yeah tort of course, Olympic white beautiful, fiesta red OK I'll let it pass there is the odd one (although more than likely a sunburst bass refinished by the distributor like selmer or kitchens to order when new) but Daphne Blue , all wrong .Candy Apple Red are you f***!ng serious, Shoreline gold, I feel sick
Apart from looking all wrong the celluloid tort is really hard to replicate unless you drop a fortune on a spitfire, why oh why do fender put awful cheap looking tort guards on custom shop custom colour basses , with an aged mint guard you'd have to get close to tell it wasn't the real thing ,with a tort one it catches my eye a mile off
Sorry everyone!
(I must admit I'm part of the problem here, I too am complicit in the illegal fender trade, one of my 5 p basses is a surf green Custom Shop which has a 10 hole gold anodised,all wrong , what were fender thinking, it would look the nuts with white/mint and with the period correct bevel , oof , but can I find a 10 hole mint guard , can I f***!!)