About — Relic Guitars The Hague

How It Started

The idea was born from frustration. Playing friends' vintage guitars always felt magical, but affording a genuine 1960s instrument was out of reach. The factory "relic" options available at the time felt unconvincing: artificial damage applied without understanding how real wear actually develops.

So the experimentation began. First on personal instruments nobody would miss if things went wrong. Then on cheap secondhand bodies bought specifically for practice. Over months and eventually years, techniques were refined until the results became indistinguishable from naturally aged instruments to both eye and hand.

Word spread among local players in The Hague and Rotterdam. What started as a hobby became a workshop, and that workshop now serves guitarists across Europe and beyond.

Luthier workshop with guitar bodies, tools, and wood shavings on workbench

Our Philosophy

Wear Tells a Story

Random damage is not relicing. Every scratch, every worn spot, every bit of checking has to make sense within the narrative of how a guitar actually gets played. We study reference images of genuinely aged instruments obsessively to understand these patterns.

Tone Follows Age

Relicing is not purely cosmetic. Properly aged finishes are thinner, allowing wood to resonate more freely. Oxidised hardware affects conductivity. Worn frets change feel. We address all these elements, not just the visual surface.

Playability First

A beautiful relic that plays poorly is a wall decoration, not an instrument. Every guitar leaving our workshop is set up to professional standards with action, intonation, and nut slots optimised for the player's style.

The Workshop

Our space in The Hague is purpose-built for this work. Temperature and humidity-controlled rooms for finish application and aging. A dedicated spray booth for nitrocellulose lacquer. Proper ventilation for the chemical processes involved in authentic oxidation.

We keep the workshop deliberately small. This is not a production line. Every instrument receives personal attention from start to finish, with a single builder responsible for the entire process rather than splitting tasks across a team.

Visitors are welcome by appointment. Many clients prefer to discuss their build in person, especially for custom projects where touching reference instruments helps communicate preferences that are difficult to describe in words alone.