Ouch! Was this appointed by one of you?

Oh! I have an idea!

Why not just play the p*ss out of it and let it get its provenance naturally??

The owner who commissioned this is a total moron. The luthier who did it should never be trusted with guitars again.
 
Moron is a bit strong IMO, but to each their own...if someone wants one beat up that's their decision. I remember a certain goldtop that went to get "checked" by PTC and turned out pretty cool looking. I like the idea of letting it happen naturally, but so many people are so cautious that it may never happen.
 
This went around the web a while back. Whoever asked him to do this, your nuts beyond words. The next time you want to ruin a piece of art, just send it to me and I'll put it to better use. BTW, making a new gutiar a "relic" doesn't make you a better gutiar player or the guitar any better. I believe the kids called these people "posers"
 
Moron is a bit strong IMO...

Actually, this is quite tame compared to the actual rant that went through my head. I cleaned it up for the sake of the Forum's PG rating.

It is true that people get to do whatever they want to the material objects that they own. However, at what point doe is become a crime against humanity to destroy something just for the sake of destroying it?

I am fully aware that beauty (and value) are in the eye of the beholder. But a sculpture made from feces and destroying a fine musical instrument are in the same incomprehensible category for me.

Your mileage may vary, not for the other use.
 
I really dislike the whole relic thing. Even my '65 SG Special, that was played hard for 47 years, looks nothing like these fake relics.

Truthfully, most older guitars don't look anything like these poser guitars.
 
Actually, this is quite tame compared to the actual rant that went through my head. I cleaned it up for the sake of the Forum's PG rating.

It is true that people get to do whatever they want to the material objects that they own. However, at what point doe is become a crime against humanity to destroy something just for the sake of destroying it?

I am fully aware that beauty (and value) are in the eye of the beholder. But a sculpture made from feces and destroying a fine musical instrument are in the same incomprehensible category for me.

Your mileage may vary, not for the other use.
Destroy? The guitar isn't in pieces and unplayable. There are plenty of people think a worn '50something strat or Les Paul is the most beautiful thing in the world. Plenty of forum guys who think Frankie's Casper is the coolest PRS standard out there. If you want to argue that it's phony - I'll give you that. If someone had that guitar for 20 years and it ended up that way naturally, we'd have half the people complaining the guitar has been abused(mostly because it's a PRS) and the other half saying "all it the name of rock n roll!" This guy happened to want it done artificially. I wouldn't do it, but I'm not gonna call this a crime of humanity or the guy himself, a moron. If we were talking about a video of some random person that was smashing a guitar to pieces just for the sake of doing it, that's a different story.
 
I'll play devil's advocate (and from the response, the guitar owner is the devil himself :) )

I personally don't like relic'd guitars at all, and wouldn't buy one, much less comission one or worse do one myself. Having said that, I think that some of the guys who do it really are artistic about it. Don't know for sure, but I've always assumed that it got started because of the crazy costs of vintage LPs. They're rare, they are really nice instruments, and rock history was made on them. So I can see where somebody would want to take a modern LP and give it the historical once-over, sort of channeling the vibe of the originals. Of course it's an aeathetic thing, and doesn't have anything to do with how it sounds, but I could say that about much of what goes into a modern high end new guitar. Why pay more for flame or quilt if it doesn't make the guitar sound any better?

The only problem that I have with the posted video (and presumably the guy who commisioned the work) is that there isn't much of an argument for artistry that can be made in what he's doing. But then again, who am I to say?? I do know that I've seen relic'd LPs that represent a ton of work and what appears to me to be taste and artistry. I can appreciate that, even if I don't personally dig the end result. I can't even begin to imagine the motivation for doing this on a CE, but then again, my imagination isn't all that great.
 
So...I'll give you my take really fast-their capital...their guitar...they can do what they want. I am not a fan of what they did to that CE.

Some relic jobs look ehhhh...others look amazing. I would have no problem playing a good relic. There is definitely a level of artistry involved in accurately reproducing the aging process.

Personally I thought the way Todd did his goldtop DGT and then sent it around to everyone was an absolutely killer idea on letting everyone in the community have a chance at playing a DGT while at the same time "relicing" during the process and adding mojo...the fact that BaM went down in the middle of its travels and he was able to get it back in his hands is an awesome story.

To each their own...if you want to play a relic real or a repro go for it...if not...pass and do it yourself! (Which by the way is kind of hard now considering how available the PTC guys make themselves!)

Some of the reliced esquires and tele's I have seen have almost sucked me in on more than one occasion.

Good points, Bob.

I guess I just don't like fake anything - be it fake antique guitars, fake antique furniture, fake antique paintings, whatever.

But lots of people do, and I suppose it's very inappropriate for me to be the judge of their tastes.
 
I have several well loved, well-played, 10+ year old guitars that don't look destroyed. They don't look like case candy, but they don't look like any reliced guitar I've ever seen.
 
I have played my same guitar for almost twenty years while wearing on occasion: studded armbands, studded belts, a .30 cal. bullet belt, armbands with 3" galvanized nails, rhinestone shirts, Bedazzeled jeweled everything, full skateboard pads, and once a full wedding gown complete with diamond applique, and I barely have ANY scratches on the upper arm area!

How this is supposed to look like real wear is beyond my comprehension.
 
I know that some of you don't agree, but what they did to that guitar was a crime. But I did, and do still, acknowledge that is their guitar to do with what they want. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Then there is the notion of the forgery itself. The guitar is now a lie. The guy who owns it (unless he 'fesses up to everyone he shows it to) is a liar.

Fake provenance. Impressed. NOT. Disgusted. Yes.
 
I have played my same guitar for almost twenty years while wearing on occasion: studded armbands, studded belts, a .30 cal. bullet belt, armbands with 3" galvanized nails, rhinestone shirts, Bedazzeled jeweled everything, full skateboard pads, and once a full wedding gown complete with diamond applique, and I barely have ANY scratches on the upper arm area!

Nice! Were you in a Marilyn Manson cover band?
 
Wow. I've seen this vid a couple of times before but it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

Have to be honest and say I don't really get the whole relic thing.

It's nice when you know the wear is from years of hard use (Rory Gallagher Strat) but when it's faked it never looks right.

Hey hoe... Clients money (Down the drain)!
 
Don't get me wrong Les...that video makes me cringe...I think he completely defaced that guitar...


Todd's goldtop is a completely different story.... I think that guitar is cool as **** (sorry Todd if it bothers you I'm focusing on your axe...but like I said...it's cool as ****!!!!)

No problem.....I've been sitting on the fence reading this thread. I'm assuming here, BUT I have a feeling that those that are dead set or feel this guitar was ruined are the first mamby/pamby's that are ready to jump off a bridge when their prized piece of collectable art gets a nick in it..... I've played NUMEROUS vintage Goltops and I owned a 57 for about 4 months until I found out it was a stolen guitar I wasted all my summer lawnmowing money on as a kid. I asked Shawn and the PTC guys to IMHO make an already good guitar great. I knew it would be a project they would be into as it wasn't anything that they'd done before. Not only does it LOOK like my old 57, it FEELS and plays like a Vintage guitar. The finish is the real thing....and all the tweaks Skitch,Miles and the Evil Genius did are amazing. I say to each his own and if you don't have something nice to say....keep it shut! :violin:
 
Wow...I had seen this before and I feel the same about it now. IMO that was horrible. If you own the guitar, you can do what you want to it, but whew...I would not be willing to do this to a guitar I didn't pay for much less one I did. I love a naturally relic'd guitar, but I am not much for a forced relic-ing of them.

I also like stuff others do not...so to each his own.
 
No problem.....I've been sitting on the fence reading this thread. I'm assuming here, BUT I have a feeling that those that are dead set or feel this guitar was ruined are the first mamby/pamby's that are ready to jump off a bridge when their prized piece of collectable art gets a nick in it..... I've played NUMEROUS vintage Goltops and I owned a 57 for about 4 months until I found out it was a stolen guitar I wasted all my summer lawnmowing money on as a kid. I asked Shawn and the PTC guys to IMHO make an already good guitar great. I knew it would be a project they would be into as it wasn't anything that they'd done before. Not only does it LOOK like my old 57, it FEELS and plays like a Vintage guitar. The finish is the real thing....and all the tweaks Skitch,Miles and the Evil Genius did are amazing. I say to each his own and if you don't have something nice to say....keep it shut! :violin:

You are conflating arguments here. A nick from actual use does not compare to willful destruction. It is one thing to sand a neck to make it smooth and playable, it is an entirely different thing to sand the body just to make it look old.

Perhaps I missed the object of the video. But I'm pretty sure the owner was going for looks and not playability. The only part that actually seemed to be done solely to enhance playability was the rounding of the sharp corners on the nut. I'm pretty sure that the rest was for show, not for go.

edit: I just watched the entire video again, just to see if there was anything which enhanced the playability or the feel of the guitar. I wanted to give those who think this is cool their due. The only playability enhancements would be the nut dressing and the smoothing of the neck - everything else was for fake provenance and remains incomprehensible to me.

edit: I don't know Todd and I also don't know what journey his guitar made. I find that I don't fully understand the reasons people do these things to guitars. I'll retract my labeling of the owner of the guitar in the video a 'moron'. Please forgive me. I suppose it was the shock of it all.

Perhaps someone will point me to a thread that details Todd's guitar's journey. I'm interested. From what I can gather from bits and pieces here, it was a very different journey than depicted in the video.
 
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