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Fender Stratocaster Custom Shop Cunetto Relic Fiesta Red

This Fender Custom Shop Relic guitar was coming from the first years serial Relic guitars production by Fender Custom Shop. The guitar has all parts original and condition of the frets are excellent. The playability is really comfortable. The weight is only 3,7 kgs. The radius of rosewood fingerboard is 7,25". The previous owner changed the pickups but we re-installed the original pickups again, it means the soldering is not original on pots and switch, the original pickups replaced by our luthier workshop. It comes with original tweed hardcase and the Custom Shop certificate.

Story about Fender Custom Shop Relic guitars

Ageing, antiquing, or distressing an instrument has existed for decades. But the Relic wasn’t really a ‘thing’ until the Fender Custom Shop made it one in 1995. The two prime movers in the creation of Fender’s original Relics were JW Black and Vince Cunetto. Fender’s Relic Series was begun after Keith Richards tried a new Custom Shop guitar and liked it, but said he’d only play it if they “bashed it up a bit”. From there, the Custom Shop occasionally applied a little ageing treatment as a one-off for artists who needed that look, but it wouldn’t be a standard line until Vince Cunetto came into the picture. Vince Cunetto had never worked full time as a guitar maker, and Fender hired him to make the relic of the guitars. By December of 1994 Cunetto had completed “five or six” acceptable prototypes displaying different levels of wear. JW Black and John Page selected one Nocaster and one Mary Kaye Strat, and Page made up steel stamps to emboss the word ‘Relic’ inside the bodies and the Custom Shop logo on the backs of the headstocks.

The full story is available here https://guitar.com/guides/essential-guide/relic-guitars-untold-story/