What’s the deal with pre-aged replica guitars?

Matt — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:00:28 +0000

I am going to go on a bit of a rant right now and just toss this out there. Can someone please tell me what the appeal of a replica guitar is? Ok, so signature guitars are one thing. You want to sound as close to your guitar idol as humanly possible, so you buy all of their gear including their brand new INSERT GUITAR MANUFACTURER HERE Signature guitar. But I just don’t get where guitar makers are finding a market for all of these replica guitars complete with every scuff, stain, and scratch of the original.

The first one I saw was ESP’s James Hetfield Truckster. It comes complete with the same wear marks that are found on James’ original. Ok… sort of a cool idea, I’ll dig it. Then I came across Dean’s Dimebag Darrell Dean from Hell ML replica. Again… ok, even though I have issues with Dean taking advantage of Dime’s now legend status to sell guitars after his untimely death (RIP Dime).

Then the big announcement at NAMM was Eddie Van Halen worked out a deal with Fender to produce a limited number of exact replicas of his Frankenstrat guitar. Now… I don’t think I need to point out the obvious, but I will anyway. The original wasn’t even a Fender. In fact it said Charvel right on the headstock. So is fender going to go as far as to find the same original parts that went into making the original Frankenstrat? I really don’t think so. Never the less, they will sell for thousands of dollars.

Even as I write this I came across this Gibson Custom Limited Run Zakk Wylde Bullseye Aged Les Paul. Again, who wants to pay $7,999USD for scuffed up replica?

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What’s the deal with pre-aged replica guitars?