Overly reliced and over priced

steveintampa

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Can anybody say what that guitar would cost if new but not relic'ed.?
That is an excellent question. I found this:

 

FNG

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That is an excellent question. I found this:

Interesting, that guitar also has some sort of aging process to mimic it sitting in a closet for years.

Seems like the original guitar is for hipsters sitting around in Carhartt clothes drinking PBR on the weekend off from their tech job. All hat and no cattle!
 

Walter Broes

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How does wear happen between the ashtray and the tongue depressor?
That actually does happen with a player with fingernails/picks - look at pics of Danny Gatton's'53.

I love telecasters and haven't been without one for the last 35 years.
I think the relic thing is silly, but plenty of people obviously like it a lot...
 

Guildedagain

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They charge by the pockmark, and there are many.

By the way, that's a Relic in "mint condition".

Damned if you put your own ding on it, value goes way down.
 

Guildedagain

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Ugly piece of c**p!
That's really harsh coming from Teleguy lol
I dunno... looks like a spot-on reproduction of a '52 Fender cherry sunburst to me....






;)
You can't blame Fender, the suckers are lining up to buy for a few likes on a forum.
Fender's "Roadworn" series was available by 2018 and perhaps earlier.
This has little to do with the Roadworn Series which by all accounts very good instruments, very well liked, very well received, the Relics for the masses.

Fender unveiled the Relic program circa 1993-1994 I'd have to look at my show pass at the big vintage show in Puyallup WA that year.

Over the years, they've refined it, I try not to pay attention to it, and hope they finally learned how to relic a guitar or at least the metal parts correctly.

This relic thing, really best described as a craze, trickled down to the secondary/copy market, everywhere, really rough stuff, way over the top.

Nowadays, Fender Custom Shop can sell a $20k McCready Strat or anything they want, like this, at any price they want and not appreciating it makes no difference, it will sell and that's all that really matters, not opinion, money.

If you can't afford Fender Custom Shop there are a lot of option, eBay is like the Harbor Fright of guitars.

Screen Shot 2025-10-31 at 2.35.19 PM.png
 
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steveintampa

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Walter Broes

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Well...respectfully...no. those expensive relic guitars áre Fender custom shop, the one you linked to is regular Fender USA.

And yes, the custom shop is a (pretty big!) factory too, but it's a little different.
Some aspects of it compare more to how a factory was in the 60's, albeit with space age machinery. But anchor weight body blanks get rejected, a lot of finishes are nitro, sprayed by humans, neck wood is often prettier, quartersawn or riftsawn, and I think there's slightly more human hands involved, and maybe a little more time per individual guitar.

When I was a teenager in the 80's, a lot of "gun for hire" working pros, guys who played for name acts, did sessions, etc.. would still schlep around pre-cbs strats, a lot of them modified, refinished, etc.

Now, the guys in that line of work who play strats or teles often either play high end replicas by one of the many clone builders (or "assemblers") out there - think Danocaster or similar - or Fender CS guitars.

There are multiple reasons for that - getting a guitar in a certain price bracket makes sense because the money they're spending is tax-deductable, but it's not just that : with the higher end stuff you get more of a weight guarantee, there are more, and more refined neck profiles and fret sizes, etc..

The custom shop guitars usually have simple tried and true hardware, while the USA standard or deluxe or "pro" stuff tends to have more "this year's model" jive in bridges, tuners, noiseless V3 blabla pickups, and switching schemes that look good on paper but nobody actually needs or uses much. And two years later, they'll introduce some other gizmo, because they need a press release for the trade show - and these days, the influencers!

You can take or leave the relic thing, a lot of people seem to love it, but a lot of Gibson and Fender CS guitars áre a little better and more refined - the best production versions of classics those big companies can do in a factory environment and still have a healthy profit margin left for the company and dealers.

The pros are not the people keeping these companies going, and most guitars end up with hobbyists, collectors, etc..., but there's far worse things to spend money on, right?

Like I said earlier in this thread, I love telecasters, and being frustrated with the average weight and specs of the standard stuff and too short on funds for vintage or CS, I went partscaster.
I'm lucky to have three talented luthiers in my circle of friends who can tweak them and turn a bunch of parts into a great playing guitar. But if money was not a concern, I'd very likely own a couple of CS teles.
 
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Bill Ashton

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...don't think they made any sunburst-finish tele's back then. My "white one" was more what they
call "Antique White" today, certainly not the "Butterscotch" they offer...that shade came from
cigarette nicotene, and wouldn't be all over the guitar. But I digress...

Yuch!
 
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