WHATEVER WE WANT
They might be controversial, but aged relic guitars are here to stay, because that’s what more and more of us want. We talk taste and trends with World Guitars’ Julian White…
You might think a brand-new guitar aged to appear as though it’s been used and abused for many years is an abomination. But Fender has often said that as far as its Custom Shop is concerned, aged guitars make up the majority of what it produces. Degrees or levels of relicing are well catered for by the Custom Shop and have evolved over time. The 2019 Custom Guitar Design Guide, for example, offers six ageing styles that progress from as-new through to very bashed up: New Old Stock (NOS), Closet Classic, Lush Closet Classic, Journeyman Relic, Relic and Heavy Relic.
“It’s very rare we order NOS these days,” says Julian White as we settle into our conversation at World Guitars. “If it is NOS, then it’s a Hank Marvin-style Strat in red… with gold bits! Everything else is aged to a certain degree.”
Julian has a long background in everything to do with playing, collecting, working on and selling guitars. He owns many fine originals but is just as partial to a nicely aged Strat or Les Paul, and Guitarist has plundered his collection on more than one occasion.
“I like the Journeyman finish,” Julian continues. “It’s got the same body checking as the Lush Closet Classics but with just a few knocks and dings, and slightly more aged hardware. But it’s also about the necks as well. The Lush Closet Classics tend to still have fairly pristine necks. As soon as you get into Journeyman, they’re a little bit softer – they’ve got a bit more wear on them. They vary, too. There’s a Tele there with a bald neck, where the finish has been removed back to the bare wood, that’s still a Journeyman, and then some of them have got a bit of the finish worn away down the edges. But generally