Fender Road Worn Series: Well-worn or Worn-out?

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Well, they serve a purpose: I played an outdoor gig on the 4th with my Classic '50s P at the lake in 103F heat, and damned if I didn't really regret having the poly finish. My right arm was slippin and aslidin, jumpin and ajivin along that slick interface. Nitro finishes are sooooo much better...but the price is soooooo much higher, too. I don't like the dishonesty that "this axe feels just like a killer player!" when, in fact, it may well be a mediocre player with some time spent on the belt sander.

Guess I'll have to spring for the American Vintage '57. =sigh=
 
Don't they sell a non-beat up guitar with a nitro finish, like the Custom shop stuff? Not that that's cheap either . . .

I don't have a problem with wanting a beat-up guitar, I just have a problem with paying somebody else $4,000 for a few minutes of eighth-grade shop quality abuse :D
 
I can't believe I went to the AudioFanzine site.

And I can't believe I read that review all the way down to where the author said, "but I found that this guitar seemed to have a little extra something to it, and provided the "feeling" of a vintage guitar". Sheesh, what a marketing ploy. Factory chipped paint and it's got a "vintage" sound. And people are actually buying this shit.
 
i've played a few of both the strat and the tele. not too bad, they do have a cool feel and vibe, but not $1,000.00 worth.

thinkin about building one and distressing it. spend my money on pups and neck.
 
mshilarious said:
Don't they sell a non-beat up guitar with a nitro finish, like the Custom shop stuff? Not that that's cheap either . . .
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the american vintage guitars have nitro finish and are not beat up. i have a very nice jazzmaster from that series and it is oh so sweet.
 
No Love for the road worn garbage here

I think these guitars are built for rich kids who want instant experience:rolleyes:
 
i personally will never buy one, its insulting somehow? LOL....we laugh about them all the time over beers.

but to add more craziness to the mess, they charge MORE for these beat up guitars?

I could almost understand if they had blemishes and sold them cheaper.....but to take a good guitar and beat it up and then sell it for more money?

to each their own......why not buy your own new Amerrican Strat for only $1000 then beat it up yourself? put some cigerette burns in there, pop it with a hammer, maybe throw it down some stairs....drag it on some cement....spray some clorox bleach on the chrome....

ok now I made myself laugh...:p omg...
 
It's good to see I'm not crazy. I never got that.

But here's the thing. Somebody has to be buying these things. Thy would have been pulled off the shelves long ago if they weren't selling.
 
Relics are lame...

I personally think the whole Relic thing is lame. But as said before, they sell like crazy and a good 70% of the Custom Shop guitars are offered in the Relic finish. They outsell the NOS's all the time, which to me is crazy. It almost feels like cheating to me.

It's like dorks who want to play guitar but spend all their time playing Rock Band. They want the experience of a beat up guitar but don't want to play one for years and earn it. If you want a beat up axe, buy vintage or PLAY one all the time! Gig for Christ sakes!

The only distressed finishes I feel are appropriate are the replicas of famous guitars. If you want your Eric Clapton Blackie to look like his, that's easier for me to swallow. But a Mexican made Road Worn Strat where all the finishes have the same wear and tear patterns? I played one at Sam Ash and it really just felt the same as a Standard Strat but with the neck a little broken in. Not worth an extra 3 bills...
 
Reminds me of when people buy jeans with tears in them.

If I met someone who bought a relic I would probably laugh in their face.
 
acidrock said:
Reminds me of when people buy jeans with tears in them.

If I met someone who bought a relic I would probably laugh in their face.
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I buy REAL relics all the time but when I get them I refinish them to look new.
 
I saw a few of them lined up at GC several months ago and I admit that they were slightly cooler than I thought they'd be. But what was weird was the uniformity of the wear. Each one of them had the exact same dings in them in the same place on the body.

To be perfectly honest, if I were seeing a band play and the guitar player had a shiny new strat or a "road worn" one, my knee jerk would be that I like the distressed prop better. I'm shallow I guess.
 
COOLCAT said:
i personally will never buy one, its insulting somehow? LOL....we laugh about them all the time over beers.

but to add more craziness to the mess, they charge MORE for these beat up guitars?

I could almost understand if they had blemishes and sold them cheaper.....but to take a good guitar and beat it up and then sell it for more money?

to each their own......why not buy your own new Amerrican Strat for only $1000 then beat it up yourself? put some cigerette burns in there, pop it with a hammer, maybe throw it down some stairs....drag it on some cement....spray some clorox bleach on the chrome....

ok now I made myself laugh...:p omg...
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I think they look quite cool. And they fill a niche. I may even procure one for myself in the future. And people were snapping them up recently for $499 through Musicians Friend.

Fender has got the look down quite well. I think relicing isn't just about placing live cigarettes on the body and spraying your chrome with bleach and all that. You've got to know how and what approaches to use to get it to look good.
 
357mag said:
Fender has got the look down quite well. I think relicing isn't just about placing live cigarettes on the body and spraying your chrome with bleach and all that. You've got to know how and what approaches to use to get it to look good.
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Sorry, I've seen hundreds, perhaps even thousands of REAL beat up guitars, and no one - EVER - has even come close to making a relic that actually looks right. I've seen hundreds of those too, and from dozens of different sources (the Fender Custom Shop, various "freelance" relicers* on down to the "road word" bullshit), and they all look stupid. Not just close up (though it is worst there; Fender does the weather checking on their relics UNDER THE CLEAR COAT, when the clear coat is what naturally weather checks the most! And weather checking something so it actually looks right isn't even that hard - it just takes one of those cans of compressed air they sell for cleaning out electronics and such), but from just about any distance. They are flat out moronic.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi


*Is that even a word?
 
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