Relic Guitars - Guitar Relicing Services

In our opinion, nothing is more beautiful than a vintage guitar that has been heavily played and has that "dragged behind a truck and through a fire" appearance. The increasing expense of purchasing a vintage instrument has made it impractical to take the risk of damaging it on the road, or worse yet, having it stolen.

The idea behind relicing a guitar is to artificially replicate the natural wear that occurs over the many years that the instrument has been played. This procedure involves aging the hardware, and creating authentic looking wear marks on the neck and body of the guitar.

Naturally, there will be some fretboard wear on the neck of an older guitar, arm wear on the upper body, belt buckle scratches on the back, and the usual nicks and dings that one aquires with age.
Our objective is to recreate the look and feel that these vintage guitars have as closely as possible.

We have had numerous requests to relic guitars mass produced by F.M.I.C. such as the R.I. series. Even though they may be authentic reissues of 50's and 60's instruments, the paint is not nitro but a nitro-poly blend of some type. They also have a self-leveling primer and a curing accelerator. The reason for this is a more speedy production of a quantity of guitars. Poly may be great for your car, but in our opinion it stifles the tone of your guitar.

Here at Relic Guitars, we attempt to capture the "vibe" of these guitars with a more reasonable price tag than an actual vintage guitar. In no way are these recreations meant to mislead anyone into believing that they are authentic finishes.

DUE TO COPYRIGHT LAWS, WE DO NOT APPLY DECALS OF ANY KIND. PLEASE DON'T ASK!