Relic Guitars and some alternative places to put your hard earned six string readies.

Hello twang meisters and mistresses! I have long been a sometimes vociferous advocate of the view that so called 'relic' guitars are not a good long term buy if you want to get your money back. There are those out there in twangland dear readers that cry out that the 'relic' guitar is cool...you don't need to worry about chipping them and they are already played in. Like vintage but brand new and available at your local dealership. OK! Lets explode some 'relic' myths here: 1. The 'Keef will play em if he can have them all beaten up' was a brilliant piece of smoke and mirrors myth making by the Fender marketing department. Hey stories like that turn a buck - but he claims he didn't say that! C'mon this is Keef we are talking about here! 2. The relic process was demystified at a NAMM show sometime in the mid 2000's - there is no Fender Custom Shop magic mojo 'pixie dust' at work here. Keys, sandpaper, deep heat, liquid nitrogen its not a "skill" its a chemical process and when did the Guild of American Luthiers adopt throwing keys at a guitar as a 'skill'? 3. They are a baby boomer affectation a bit like faded Levis - the 'baby boomers' are dying out. Repeat the Baby Boomers are - unfortunately for us guitar dealers - a dying breed, therefore its simple demographics - demand will therefore, inevitably fall over time. 4. The "kids" want something different to their dads. I get a lot of 20-something players at guitar shows going mad over 70's Stratocaster's with their thick 'unmarkable' poly finishes. Time and the vintage guitar market move on! 5. Remember Fender increasingly can't 'do' nitro finishes in Southern California due to environmental legislation. They DO DO lots of nitro and thin skin finishes in Mexico. Hmmmmmm where DOES that $3500 relic Stratocaster start out its life? Why not just buy a Mexican relic model and play the S**t out of that instead - you'll have much more fun trust me...you remember "fun" its what we used to have before we started worrying about the resale value of $3500 "damaged" guitars. 6. The outer skin and finish of a guitar is a fashion trend - think of Gibson painting TV Yellow and Gold Top finishes on to Les Paul Juniors and Standards - fashions change - often rapidly and some like mullets and flares dont tend to come back round very often - can YOU wait "that" long Mr Relic Guitar Owner. 7. If a relic finish on a £2000 guitar is just "wear" why do guitar repairers I know get asked about repairing chips on a relic guitar? Huh? 8. Opening a box fresh pristine guitar made of quality tone woods and with a beautiful unmarked finish is one of life's simple pleasures IMHO! 9. Scratched iPhone6 with a cracked front glass anyone? But its dead 'cool' and 'street'. Nah thought not? 10. Thanks to some pretty hefty "recalibration" by various marketing departments 'relic' guitars direct from the dealer with a discount attached are getting to close to what the market seems to want to pay for a genuine vintage instruments in some cases. A chap recently "offered" me ( and I use the term advisedly) £300 less for a genuine early 1970's guitar than he was willing pay for a relic version of the same guitar. His head had clearly "gone"! If you want any validation of the insanity that is the 'relic' guitar try this simple test. Take your wife, girlfriend or significant other (relic guitar buyers are 98.6257% male right?) to a guitar shop - take a relic and a standard USA Stratocaster and try to explain to her why the beaten up guitar in the glass case costs twice as much as the nice shiny one on the wall. Not brave enough for that simple test chaps? OK lets move on! Back in the real world where real money gets spent. A Fender 69 Custom Shop relic Stratocaster is the biggest "faller" in the relic stable at £1250 (market value) that is down roughly 15% on second hand prices from 2 years ago. Sorry if you have one of these but its a relic replica of a guitar that is post CBS and has been superceded by various Hendrix lookilikeecasters. Not a good brand new buy - not a gigging guitar and I am unsure where it fits in at all as a keepsake investment instrument. A 57 Stratocaster Custom Shop heavy relic on Gumtree recently did not sell at £1100. I didn't buy it and it was re-listed a few times. It wasn't "nice" looking at all and the heavy relic thing really does look as rough as a badger's behind to me. Most of the 50's style Custom Shop relics are however, hovering around £1400-£1600 mark in the UK second hand guitar market. Look I know some dealers and customers prefer the more polite term 'investment' instruments but lets call a spade a shovel rather than a 'digging implement' here. The problem is they aren't going up and aren't likely to for a while. Remember those Nash relic copies a while back I have seen those going for £600-£750 and the price always seems lower every time I see one. Besides Gumtree, Preloved and Ebay seems to be full of 'terrible' relic jobs some bloke has done in his shed and that's not going to help sales or re-sale value anytime soon. My view is that in 10, 20 or 30 years time the guitar buying public and TV documentary makers will be discussing something along the lines of "They did WHAT!!!! to guitars in early 21st century" and it will be the subject of ironic TV programmes in the way that we look back at the 1970's in the same ironic way now. Final point! I think people are now bored with the "it's made to look like a vintage guitar but it's brand new" sales pitch...thats not 'amaaaaazing; any more as dinner table chit chat. Sorry folks! The problem is where is the smart money going if you want to buy guitars as investment. My advice and it pains me to say this is electric guitars "aren't" at the moment. We are going through something of a golden age of acoustic guitar building from Martin, Taylor, Santa Cruz, Froggy Bottom, etc. The prices do reflect the quality of timber and workmanship but some of them represent amazingly beautiful hand crafted artefacts where the quality shines through in a way that some "Custom Shop" employee throwing bunches of keys at a load of pre sprayed bodies unfortunately for me don't. There is also massive oversupply in the world guitar market. Manufacturers caught on to fact that some of us (me included) were buying and hoarding guitars in ever increasing numbers and geared up production to match. There are factories in the Far East churning out various guitars for manufacturer's low price branded ranges in ever increasing numbers. Its a great time to be starting out as the choice of good quality cheap guitars is endless. Farther up the food chain things get a little more opaque and the 'relic' thing has served to muddy that pool still further. The debate over tone woods and the Lacey Act will I think rumble on for a while and no-one wants to think their mahogany, rosewood or ebony led to the destruction of any sort of wildlife's natural habitat. I don't want to see buying a new guitar with expensive internationally sourced woods to be as unacceptable as buying a mink coat for the wife or killing tiny forest creatures but that seems to be where the debate is headed. Smartwood Gibson Les Pauls seem to be going up in second hand value - I wonder why? On that point I do tend to like luthiers and builders who increasingly use locally sourced "native" timbers such as Patrick James Eggle, Vigier, Brook and Lowden. Its not a Toyota Prius eco "thing" for me they also are damn fine guitars made from locally sourced materials and remember Stradivarius sourced native materials affected by soil conditions and other "pollutants" to get his unique tone woods. But if you can afford a Patrick James Eggle and Indian Rosewood or a relic guitar "worries you", you can always come to me for something pre-loved and pre-owned! Think of it as a real "relic" guitar thats also being recycled and is new to you! Until next time fret-heads and twang kings and queens Arrivederci!

Last-ditch attempt to save Tin Pan Alley from being turned into a theme park

Last-ditch attempt to save Tin Pan Alley from being turned into a theme park



There are those who say Denmark Street has had it coming from a long time.  Especially the vintage guitar shops who in the past might have been a little more customer friendly.  BUT... it is a place of musical and cultural significance in the UK. The original Tin Pan Alley.  Me I try to avoid going "down that London" if I can I am just happy Upt'North with my whippet flat cap and '72 Telecaster but it would be a shame to see it bulldozed and developed just because some Numptie from Camden Council Planning Department says its ok to!