Buying a Relic Guitar

The Three Categories of Relic Guitar

Before discussing what to look for, it helps to understand what you are actually choosing between. The relic'd guitar market broadly divides into three distinct categories, and they deliver very different results at very different price points.

The first category is factory relicing from large manufacturers. Fender's road-worn and relic series, Gibson's aged models, and their equivalents from other brands fall here. These instruments are made at scale and aged using mechanical processes: tumbling, wire brushing, and chemical baths applied consistently across production runs. The results are often recognisable as factory work once you know what to look for, but the instruments are solid guitars with real nitro or at least semi-nitro finishes, proper setups, and quality control. Value for money can be reasonable.

The second category is independent luthiers and small workshops — including our own operation in The Hague. Custom or short-run relic work where someone with skill and experience has hand-aged each instrument individually. The results vary considerably depending on the maker's skill and attention to detail, but the best work in this category is genuinely indistinguishable from naturally aged instruments. Prices reflect the time and skill involved.

The third category is the problem: low-cost relic guitars from unidentified Asian manufacturers, often sold on online marketplaces or through dealers who add a markup without adding any transparency. These instruments are typically poly-finished with damage applied crudely and unconvincingly. Some are sold deliberately to deceive — dressed up as vintage instruments they are not. The worst examples are active frauds.

Understanding which category you are dealing with is the first job when evaluating any relic'd guitar.

Finish: The First and Most Important Test

Start with the finish. This is where good relic work and poor relic work diverge most obviously once you know what to look for.

Authentic relic work uses nitrocellulose lacquer. Nitro checking has a specific character: the crazes are fine, irregular, and follow the surface of the wood with genuine randomness that reflects decades of thermal stress. Look at the density and direction of the checking — it should radiate differently in different areas, denser where temperature stress concentrates (around control covers, pickup routs, neck pocket), slightly different in character on the top versus the sides.

Fake checking on a poly finish is usually too regular. The crazes may be similar in width throughout, or show a pattern suggesting they were applied mechanically. Some low-budget jobs simply score the surface with fine steel wool or create checking using paint crackle effects. Under a loupe or in raking sidelight, authentic nitro checking has depth — it penetrates the lacquer film and catches light at the edges. Fake checking on poly often sits on the surface rather than through it.

The checking on a good nitro relic looks like it happened over many years because the physics of how it forms genuinely take time and temperature cycles to develop correctly. Factory checking on poly looks like exactly what it is.

Wear Patterns: Do They Make Logical Sense?

Genuine wear — both real vintage wear and skilled relic work — follows the physics of how a guitar gets played. The finish wears where hands and body contact it, and only there. The wear-through on the forearm area of the body top happens on the treble side of the lower bout, not in the middle of the upper bout. Belt buckle rash appears on the back, centred vertically but slightly offset toward the treble side. Fret wear concentrates at the most-played positions — usually the first five to seven frets — not evenly across all twenty-two.

On a poorly executed relic, the wear is random or worse, theatrical. Deep gouges in the middle of the body face where no hand ever rests. Identical-looking ding patterns repeated in several places. Wear-through on the back that does not match where a player's torso would rest. Check wear patterns as though you are a detective: does this wear have a plausible explanation? Could a real person playing this guitar in a normal way have created this mark in this location?

Hardware: Oxidation Has Tells

Hardware aging is where a lot of budget relic guitars fall apart. Authentic hardware oxidation is uneven in specific, logical ways: tarnishing concentrates in recesses and around screw heads where oils and moisture accumulate, while high points that get handled frequently remain brighter. The back of a tuning peg button — rarely touched — looks different from the front, which receives direct finger contact. String contact grooves in saddles show bright metal where strings run, surrounded by tarnished material.

Cheap fake aging of hardware is typically uniform — the entire piece dipped in a darkening solution and left with the same flat grey throughout. No differentiation between high points and recesses, no logical variation based on contact patterns. Another giveaway is inconsistency across the instrument: all the hardware aged to the same degree when different components would naturally oxidise at different rates based on their composition and handling.

Ask what the hardware is made from. Quality relic work uses genuine nickel, chrome, or aged gold hardware rather than plated zinc alloy with a chemical wash on top. The base material affects both how the aging looks and how it continues to develop after you buy the instrument.

The Neck: What a Played Guitar Feels Like

The neck of a well-executed relic should feel different to a new neck in specific ways. Genuine or well-simulated wear makes the back of the neck feel smooth and slightly worn in the places where the thumb and palm rest — roughly the lower bout area of the neck, behind the most-played fret positions. The finish should feel thinner in these zones, not uniformly thin or thick.

Fret wear on a believable relic shows flattening at the crowns of the most-played frets, with a different height and profile to the less-played upper frets. Completely flat and even fret wear across the entire board suggests mechanical levelling rather than genuine playing wear — that is not authentically aged, it is just a bad setup dressed as relic work.

The fretboard itself — assuming rosewood or ebony — should look somewhat dry and seasoned, not freshly oiled and gleaming. However, beware of fretboards that are actually dry and in need of conditioning: that is neglect, not relic work.

Red Flags to Walk Away From

Questions to Ask Before You Buy

Wherever you are buying a relic'd guitar — from a dealer, at auction, from an individual, or direct from a maker — these questions are worth asking:

What is the finish? You want to know the specific product and whether it is true nitrocellulose, a nitro/poly blend, or something else entirely. Each will age differently and requires different care.

What aging methods were used? A maker who takes their work seriously will explain the process. Vague answers about "hand relicing" without specifics suggest either that the process was mechanical or that the seller does not know.

Who built it? Custom and independent relic guitars should come with clear provenance. If the builder's identity is unclear or the instrument cannot be attributed to a specific workshop, factor that uncertainty into your evaluation.

What hardware is used, and was it aged or replaced? On relic service guitars (where someone's existing guitar has been aged), find out whether the hardware was replaced with new-and-aged parts or whether original hardware was treated. Both approaches can work, but you should know which was done.

We are happy to answer all of these questions about our own work, and to provide guidance on evaluating instruments from other makers. If you are considering a significant purchase and want a second opinion, contact us — we would rather help a player make a good decision than watch them buy something disappointing. See our current builds for examples of what well-executed relic work looks like, or read about our process to understand the methods behind it.