“Something you’ll hear a lot of is, ‘Oh, you didn’t earn that relicing.’ But people who like it aren't thinking of it like that”: The real reason why relicing is so popular, according to a Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilder

Two angles of a relic'd Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster.

The relic’d guitar trend has swept through the market in recent years. Be it Gibson’s Murphy Lab going to extreme lengths to make new guitars look like they’ve seen decades on the frontline, or firms like Charvel offering pre-roughed-up axes as a stylistic choice, relic’d guitars are selling like hot cakes.

As Fender Masterbuilders, Andy Hicks and Austin MacNutt have seen this trend gain traction firsthand and believe they understand the reasons for its growth, and are also keen to dismiss one of the biggest counterarguments.