Franchin Mercury F Thinline Frost Gold Heavy Relic (2025, Private Stock)

When a custom order turns up exactly as you pictured it, that's always a good moment. When it turns out better than you expected, you know you ordered from the right builder. Which is what happened here.

Franchin Guitars of Italy stopped being an insider tip among people who know some time ago. Every instrument is built by hand, from choosing the timber through the ageing to the pickups, which are wound in-house. Meister Ede already had a Franchin in his Private Stock and was taken with the attention to detail and the sound from the start. So it was clear fairly quickly that another one was needed — and this time specified properly to his own ideas.

The result is this Mercury F in Frost Gold Metallic, completed in August 2025 and built as a thinline with an elegant f-hole. The first look sticks: Frost Gold is a colour that refuses to commit. In diffuse light it comes across restrained, almost champagne; turn it towards the light and the metallic flashes up, turning understatement into a statement. Add the mint green pickguard, which with that warm gold makes a combination that simply belongs together.

The ageing shows what Franchin can do. It never looks applied, but like an instrument with a past — which is exactly what good relic work is, and what so few people really master.

It's just as good under the skin: a two-piece American red alder body, a roasted maple neck with a rosewood board, 9.5" radius and 22 jumbo frets. The C profile fills the hand without being clubby, and the roasted maple gives a stable, dry response. Clay dots and a bone nut round it off. The finishing touch is the reverse headstock, which not only gives the guitar a signature of its own but, through the changed string length behind the nut, makes for a tighter bass foundation and beautifully supple bends.

Plugged in, the Mercury F does everything you'd hope for from a well-made HSS. In the single-coil positions, the hand-wound Alnico 5 pickups with staggered pole pieces give the bell-like, dynamic tone you love this design for: transparent, wiry and with plenty of headroom. The thinline construction with its chamber goes a step further, making the core tone more open, woodier and noticeably livelier in the mids than a solid body.

An f-hole on a Strat-shaped body is unusual, but there's a well-known precedent: Eric Johnson wanted to bring some of the openness of semi-hollow guitars to his Strat, and worked with Fender on the Eric Johnson Signature Stratocaster Thinline, a semi-hollow Strat with an f-hole and classic Strat contours. The Mercury F follows the same idea in its own way. The Strat character stays, while the f-hole and chamber add air to the tone. The attack sounds woodier and rounder, chords open up and bloom a little more, and the mids pick up a slightly acoustic liveliness you don't get from a solid body. You hear it best on clean settings and in light crunch.

At the bridge sits a PAF replica with Alnico 5 magnets under a nickel cover, built for character rather than output: warm, singing, with that typical PAF agility that responds to every nuance in your picking hand. And as you'd expect from Ede, this humbucker splits via push/push. One press and you're back in single-coil territory. Combined with the vintage-style wiring, this instrument covers an enormous range, from shimmering cleans through smacky blues crunch to carrying, cutting rock tones.

And the hardware isn't left to chance: Gotoh vintage-style tremolo and Gotoh tuners, both aged to match, keep it in tune and give it the right feel. Ede has also fitted a roller string tree, which works a little better in practice than the original one. It isn't on the photos yet, but we're happy to send a photo on request. The original string tree comes in the case.

All told, this is an instrument where everything is right: the looks, the ageing, the timber, the playability and above all the tone. Handmade in Italy, specified to Meister Ede's ideas, and in this configuration a genuine one-off.

This Mercury F is leaving Meister Ede's Private Stock and going on sale: €2,490 under the margin scheme (§ 25a UStG). The RRP in this specification is €3,590, which is a saving of €1,100.

Price€2,490 VAT not outlined (§ 25a UStG)