5 RELICS EVOLVE

Martin were showing their first relic – little surprise considering they were at the forefront of wood-aging with their Vintage Tone System. Apparently they even pondered, “should it smell old and musty?” before concluding in the negative. Suhr was showing its Classic Antique Pro Finish guitars which, headstocks aside, look like bashed-up or rather lightly relic’d Strats.

Ibanez too has its relic’d Artcore and Artstar Hollowbodies; new additions this year are the AFV10ATRL single-cut hollowbody with nicely bashed low-gloss cherry red finish (with black and tobacco ’burst options). Eastman is taking a slightly different route, as we featured in issue 416, with an increasing range of ‘antique’ guitars finished in the brand’s violin workshop. New for this year is the introduction of a new single-cut, the SB 59/v that’s very cool. Also on show was a gorgeous ES-330-style T64/v with P-90 [4] – it’s only a prototype at the mo’ but we ordered one!