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Relic'd Acoustic Guitars


BluesKing777

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A while back, I had a thread about how I thought acoustic guitars could be the next in line for the relic craze after reading an article about the Gibson Historic Les Pauls with heavy factory relic'ing.

 

 

Most here pooh poohed, of course!

 

 

And the other day, I was reading a mag and they put the Atkins relic'd guitar ahead of the usual new Gibsons and Martins in their Gear of the Year, but yeah yeah....and they had this link:

 

 

 

http://atkinguitars.com

 

 

Have a look and listen at the relic'd ones.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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A few years ago Gibson put out the Aaron Lewis Southern Jumbo with some made to look like Aaron's - that's what I would call relic'd.

 

s-l1000.jpg

 

 

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That's a 1952. I think this is the one that Aaron L bought from Nathan at Willie's. It was Nathan's guitar.

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The whole concept hasn't managed to settle into my thinking with any degree of clarity. I have no special difficulty with honest wear on a vintage guitar. The same is true for repairs that have or need to be made to a vintage instrument. If I own it, I want to play the thing. Collectors looking to accumulate pristine specimans have a different view, and I can appreciate their preservation of instruments even though that may not be their intent. What to do with the relic notion? Does it lend credibility to the musicianship of the less credible musician? Does it help compensate for wanting to own an actual vintage guitar that's not available to the player for whatever reason? Is it meant to draw folks who like 'the look' but don't trust the integrity of the real thing? None of the above make sense to me.😯

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Well it is obviously for the guitar buyer who wants a vintage Gibson or Martin without paying for a vintage Gibson or Martin!

 

 

Have a look at the Gibson electrics site in the menu above and sort the new Les Pauls by high to low price and there for sale at over $20,000 is a relic'd version of Frampton's LP, and a row of other 'Historic Collection' LPs all over $10,000.

 

 

The Atkin 000-28 model got a 9 out of 10 on the Guitarist UK mag and I thought some of the videos sounded great, and not just me - look at some of the Atkin owners.

 

As I am currently breaking in a brand, brand new custom guitar which is different every day or every time I play while it finds it's own way, and in shock putting the first dents/scratches in it - the pre aged, pre dented doesn't seem all that bad an idea, to me. YMMV! And I thought the pricing for what you get seemed quite reasonable, compared to Legends, True Vintages, Vintages and Authentics, GE, Marquis etc.

 

And they come in the Hisco Pro II case! [biggrin]

 

I am still waiting to get my car back after blowing the motor 2 1/2 weeks ago, so there are new guitars in my immediate future! But if there were, that Atkin 43 Historic Relic......well, ........ [glare] [glare] [glare]

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Heh heh heh. You'll have to put an addition on the house for your next phase of guitar buying.

 

In a weird way, I've been feeling a need to trim down to just the guitars I play most frequently, though I did just find one of my 'call back' guitars and buy it back privately; a very cool 3/4 size blonde '61 Guild M65. Like with preferred foods, I drift toward enjoying the guitars I've kept the longest in my quest to have a 'reasonable' array of players. I get annoyed with myself at a certain point when guitars hang for long enough to begin to be wall decorations. So I go through this occasional purging. Of course, the ones I'm keeping are relic'd the old fashioned way. There are just so, so many great guitars out there to ogle and drool over. I'm calling my shrink tomorrow. Here's the M65...

 

http://www.ebay.com/...cvip=true&rt=nc

 

Anyone looking for a new M20? Free ship lower 48...

 

Tomorrow's a new day. Now hand me my L00. Gotta' play some JJ Cale. Guitars are just too much fun.

 

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I watched the Atkin Guitars videos and even if I was flush, not, and the mechanic has not returned my call but his meter is surely running......I really couldn't decide between the Atkin relic models: Gibson L1 style, Gibson J45 style, Martin 00-28 style, Martin OM28 style.......oh my!

 

Though I am leaning towards the L1 or the 00-28 - really liked the sound of the videos. (And I have a J45 and OM28 already....)

 

And what is wrong with the M20, JZ? I thought that would be a good little picker.

 

 

BluesKing777.

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M20 is a great little box. I do love it, but as I play it back and forth with my L0, there's a similar ring. Maybe too similar to the point of redundancy. That's usually the point where I begin to re-evaluate wtf I'm doing with all these toys, especially when cash should be diverted to more 'grown-up' (ha) endeavors. These self-loathing periods come and go, though. Nevertheless, I'm always on guard for whether I'm housing two similar sounding guitars. M20 might fall into that line.

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We don't want wasteful overlap!

 

Though some people happily buy the same guitar 25 times over, which I can understand in a collection, but not when it is plain ordinary.

 

The M20, I imagine, would be very similar in sound to my '44 0-17, and that is a great blues guitar to play in front of the computer! But a bit quiet in a larger room....

 

Guitarist UK gave the thumbs up to the new M20 recently - sorry, I am in the iPad and can't give you the link but it easy to search in 'Guild M20 - MusicRadar'. Let us know if they speak truth.

 

Another thought, I wonder why Atkin doesn't do a L-00? Good, it may be hard to overlook.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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That's an accurate rundown on Music Radar. It reminded me that I had Thomastik-Enfeld strings on it, which may be partially why it leans into L0 territory. The comment that it may be too quiet for some gives me the idea that it might be time to slap on the Dunlop 80/20's and see what happens. There may be a way to keep it on 'the wall'.

 

Thanks for the reference to that review. I can feel the self-loathing melt away. Wonder if I can find an old J45 project?

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That's an accurate rundown on Music Radar. It reminded me that I had Thomastik-Enfeld strings on it, which may be partially why it leans into L0 territory. The comment that it may be too quiet for some gives me the idea that it might be time to slap on the Dunlop 80/20's and see what happens. There may be a way to keep it on 'the wall'.

 

Thanks for the reference to that review. I can feel the self-loathing melt away. Wonder if I can find an old J45 project?

 

 

 

J45 Project?

 

 

Long gone but there was a 65 at a local shop for about 3 seconds and the photos and video made it appear to have a normal size neck instead of a skinny, nice faded cherry, absolutely no saddle (rosewood bridge, non adjuster.....etc, etc.

 

Had to close my eyes!

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Ha! It would have to be a slope, therefore requiring a home equity loan.

 

 

No, it was fairly cheap in a shop where the guy can 'smell' the value of a guitar from the doorway, so a guess would mean: neck set, frets, tuners, braces? Looked nice, too. And my guy would eat it for breakfast if I could pin him down, but little problem.... christmas is cancelled. (Car).

 

So I closed my eyes!

 

 

BluesKing777.

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A few years ago, I had my IB'64 Texan "relic'ed." It started out as an exercise to thin the poly finish to let the top move a more. But while the guy was doing it (and he's a friend of mine who was then in luthier school) I said, "While you're at it, go ahead and make it look old."

 

It was a fair amount of work, but the end result was a guitar that sounded excellent and was much improved over what he started with. And it looked cool.

 

The thread is here, with a full description of the work involved: http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/63347-relic-ing-an-epiphone-ib64-texan/

 

Bottom line: Relic'ing a poly-finished acoustic is a hell of a lot of work.

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I don't personally mind relicng an acoustic guitar. However, if I was to ever buy one, I would make sure to see it first. Relicing is a delicate thing, and I have seen some horrendous relicing jobs from respectable makers. Another thing that would bother me with some of the Atkin guitars is that they carry the Atkin logo. A reliced prewar D-28 reissue, or a similar reliced Banner J-45, should, in my mind, be made by Martin or Gibson. There is just such a strong connection between the maker and the design of the model. When relicing something that is obviously not by the original maker, it kind of looses that connection. Weird perhaps, but that is how I would feel about it.

 

The headstock picture here is an example of what just does not work for me...

http://atkinguitars.com/guitar/the-forty-three/

 

Note that I'm not talking about the value of the guitars as musical instruments, which is something completely different [biggrin]

 

Lars

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I think half of the guitars they relic to look like are fakes !

 

I play the crap out of my J-45 and it's nowhere near looking like it was simply abused and played by Captain Hook.......

 

Who wants a fake copy a fake abused guitar?

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There is relic'd and there is relic'd.

 

Ive got one of the Aaron Lewis model SJ's. Its not one of the 20 or so cat scratched guitars . I did see that version and it did look rather fake.

 

But, I really liked what they did with the other 200 odd models they produced. They didnt scratch them but they did make the parallelograms and binding more yellow dark, as it might look on a 60 year old guitar. I thought that was real nice touch, gave the guitar a vintage look but at leat to my eyes still looked authentic.

 

You can see the clear difference in colour when compared the AJ and SJ side by side.

 

IMG_4116.jpg

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EA - I really like that "aged" look on your AL SJ. Very nice. I like the look on some of those Adtkins, as well as others (Gibson, Martin, etc).

 

I'm more used to the term 'relic'd' as it applies to the electric market - they really make them look heavily road worn. I guess that's what I was getting at previously - to me there's a big difference between relic'd and aging.

 

 

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