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Are these the worst relics you've seen?


Sparky Mark

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These by no means look old, just a little matted and with too much finish sanded off in places - but the pickguards and hardware still look pristine. Not very convincing, but I've definitely seen worse. Nash comes to mind, they have a tendency of overdoing their relic jobs to a comical degree. Especially the backs (and the necks). 

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The paradox of relicing is the attempt to make authentic wear - which is by its very nature random and unpredictable - into something that can be replicated.

 

One of the most prominent marks on my 66 Fender is from where I placed a wine glass on it and something reacted with the paint to cause a mark.

 

I also used Pledge on the finish which probably wasn’t a good idea. Scraping that off quickly caused a bit of wear too!


Given I’ve played it a few times in the last 10 years I guess it doesn’t matter, but the point remains.

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I still think the worst relic job I`ve seen is the Fender Joe Strummer Tele, it doesn`t look "worn" at all to me, looks more like the wear has been painted over the finish, just dreadful.

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That is truly woeful.....

I generally prefer a pristine bass but ironically own 2 soft aged Sandberg Lionels.  However you can only get gloss finished Lionels with a soft or hard core relicing at the minute which is a shame.  That said I do think the Sandberg treatment is one of the better ones; it looks pretty realistic on both of mine; maybe more so on the older one which also has neck shine and little neck pocket lacquer cracks. 

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The best relic job I've seen by a million miles is one that my guitarist mate did on his old Squier Strat. I don't know how he did it, but it looked absolutely superb. Not a belt sander mark in sight, if you didn't know better you'd swear it was the result of 40 years of relentless gigging rather than a couple of evenings with some tools and stuff.

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27 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

I didn't know they did that - I thought it was just rubbing off paint. - that makes it even worse than I'd imagined.

 

Neither did I, maybe they are 'real' player wear.  The soft aged don't have any paint 'rubbed off' they're just small dings and scratches, hardware tarnishing; no sanding until the hard core aged and 'master' grades.  TBH from a couple of feet away you'd be hard pressed to see any wear on the soft aged.

Edited by martthebass
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41 minutes ago, Homatron said:

Looks like they tried to sand the whole thing without going through all the effort of removing the strings.

 

I'm sure it looked lovely beforehand!

Crikey. A pie-bald Bass. Each to their own I guess

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