“A dream that’s been years in the making”: Harley Benton joins the relic bandwagon with $238 hand-aged guitars

Harley Benton has hopped on the relic hype train with the launch of its Aged Series – which offers hand-aged electric guitars and bass guitars for as low as $238.

Love 'em or hate 'em, artificially aged guitars have experienced a boom in popularity over the past few years.

Gibson has pioneered the Murphy Lab. Fender has debuted the Heirloom treatment. Charvel, EVH, Solar Guitars, you name it. Almost everyone is leaning into the relic trend right now. Heck, there are even relic guitar stickers to make your box-fresh guitar look faux-damaged.

Nowadays, players want the best of both worlds; to have the battered aesthetic with a brand-new condition.

But these relic’d guitars can be quite expensive. Fender’s American Ultra Luxe Vintage guitars start from $2,849. Gibson’s Murphy Lab? An Ultra Heavy Aged 1959 Les Paul will set you back $10,699.

Enter Harley Benton. The affordable gear champion’s new Aged Series comprises a bunch of classic double-cut, single-cut and offset silhouettes, each of which offer a relic’d finish. The best part? They cost under $250 – and they’re all aged by hand.

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The Aged Series has taken two years to refine, scale and finesse. Each model is available in Light Aged and Heavy Aged versions, with finishes such as Olympic white, Sunburst, Seafoam Green, Shell Pink and Black all on tap.

It’s the hand-aging thing that’s the real sell here, along with that incomprehensibly low price point. That’s almost custom shop-level attention to detail at an entry level budget.

Granted, it remains to be seen just how effective the aging looks up close, but from afar they look like the real deal. Kudos to Harley Benton for also aging the hardware.

The Aged Series includes S-type, T-type and offset electric guitars, as well as a P Bass-inspired four-string. Specs across the board include alder bodies, caramelized Canadian maple necks and laurel fretboards, as well as ISOLA alnico 5 pickups.

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“We’ve always had ambition here at Harley Benton,” the company says. “The Aged Series is a dream that’s been years in the making. We’ve been working hard to develop a durable finish to nail the character and patina that make these guitars so breathtaking.

“The result? Authentic, hand-aged instruments, each one unique in aesthetic, all for incredible value, and we’re ever so deeply enamoured.”

Head over to Harley Benton for more info.

The inclusion of the S-types here is particularly notable, given the backdrop of Thomann's recent legal tangle with Fender over a high-profile copyright dispute. Depending on how that case develops, it remains to be seen how long these models will stick around for.