Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Wildwood Guitars in Colorado (one of my fave emporiums de Rickenbacker) has this breathlessly featured on their Electric homepage...



They've got about eight of these in, and they're "only" $6500.00, featuring the "new" thin nitro finish...

Then, of course, there's the "new" Jeff Beck Esquire, with "authentic" wear patterns and grunge. This one, an extremely limited edition (only 150 fools worldwide...OOPS! Sorry! Did I say that?) at a suggested MSRP of $15K (Sam Ash has it for only $10,499.00)...



Ultimate irony dept.: note the sign in this picture...are they afraid someone's gonna scratch it?

Wow! Maybe you can "age" my 4001 before you send it to me.

These have ZERO appeal to me.

Yeah, but you know, Bob, I'm not that bright or I would be building Willie Nelson replica acoustics at $15K a pop...

Thank God I'm stupid.

This would look good with a nice gold TRC and pickguard. Look at all that "character!"

You could feature the Willie Nelson "tug hole" sos yuze can play like Willie, too!

Paul, I'm with you 110% on this relic **** and crazed pricing! Enough already!

AAAAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

I just got a promo ad in the mail featuring that hideous Jeff Beck guitar.... telling me several reasons why "now" was the time to buy the guitar of my dreams....! EEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!! Absolute **** at a ridiculous price.

BTW, you all know I already own the guitar of my dreams....

"Fender and the Barnum Philosophy"

Perfect title Paul.

Any relic guitar that I'm going to own is going to be naturally reliced by me. Then of course if I get tired of the relic, I'll send it to Paul for a refinish.

Don't do that, Richard! You'd ruin a one of a kind Bengston model!

I have no problem with Fender making the Relic stuff. I Do have a problem with the pricing.Wait a minute; no, I Don't have a problem with it; no problem if you don't Buy one...and I didn't...

I like the NOS stuff. Even the closet classic instruments are cool, but the relic stuff like the stuff posted above seems a bit over the top to me. But since people are buying... I'm heading upstairs to beat the **** out of my tele and put in on ebay for $10K.

Sorry - But I spend enough money trying to keep my guitars looking new. I just can't see spending scads more for a guitar that looks old!

Brian. I agree on the NOS; but to me they're are just another Fender marketing scam, supposed to be an "unrelicked relic". Hmmm...smells funny to me, like they are getting more than twice the price (that's about 240%, or $3K+ folks!) for a new guitar with a certain different number of pickguard screws, an older neck profile, old-style decal, brand new electronics, painted in an old color, and topped off with their awful "Custom Shop" V logo, which belies the illusion of age anyway. Heck, their costs on these are probably on the order of 40% over a new model of same.

Remember the post in which I said Fender had no less than 64 different models of Strats in the NAMM pricelist? Well, that didn't include Custom Shop models! The CSs put the total to about the 120 level or so. So what was faintly ridiculous is now far, far over the top, and a tribute to creating demand out of intangible smoke and mirrors...

As Aretha would say, "Who's zoomin' who???"

Holy sh... ehm. Sorry. Hey, you guys at Fender! Send your guitars to us, and Mousie will show you how to age them!!!!
(Well. It's not so much fun, in fact. It's ridiculous. IMHO.)