How do we feel about surf green with tortoise shell?

[shigginpit]

I can honestly say that while almost without fail I pick tortoise shell as a preference with most of the DuPont colors, surf green is the one color which I love where it's difficult for me to pair with TS. That said, lately I'm starting to come around. Like when the surf green has that really putrid yellowing lacquer with a tortoise guard I start to point north. I'm still of the belief that mint looks better with most surf finishes but, what's the general consensus? Anyone diehard on the surf / tortoise pairing? It's hard to break these longtime biases, any favorite pics to tip me over the line?

[Embenny]

I personally can't stand tort on anything in the cool colour spectrum. White - absolutely. Red? Sure. Black? Why not. Blue/green/purple? Never.

[marqueemoon]

Not into it.

[MattK]

agree with the wise views in this thread so far

[shigginpit]

I personally can't stand tort on anything in the cool colour spectrum.

I'm normally with this 100% but I'm having a hard time being mad at, for example, this mustang.



This color, however, may have mutated a fair degree from what is permissible as surf green.
I also don't contest that the same guitar with mint would look arguably better.

This jag is also not bad, but I prefer the really acrid yellowing on the mustang. Also, once again
would probably look better with mint, but I'm not offended when I see it.



And while it's difficult to do yay/nay with something so subjective and specific,
this last version of a surf green jazzmaster with tort looks really bad to me.

like really bad, gouge out my eyes bad, although for someone who doesn't like any of them,
they probably all look equally unattractive.



In retrospect I think that something about the amber headstock on the mustang makes it work better than the
matching headstock on the jag. Not to a degree so significant that I was able to immediately identify it, but I'm just
trying to figure out what specifically I don't hate about it. Maybe I'm just going through a phase.

Or entering into senility.

[ThePearDream]

I personally can't stand tort on anything in the cool colour spectrum. White - absolutely. Red? Sure. Black? Why not. Blue/green/purple? Never.

Total agreement here. I'm wondering more all the time, if people who like tort on green or blue, might not have some amount of color blindness. I've never seen one of these guitars that wouldn't look better with a different pickguard (IMO of course).

[Embenny]

I personally can't stand tort on anything in the cool colour spectrum. White - absolutely. Red? Sure. Black? Why not. Blue/green/purple? Never.

Total agreement here. I'm wondering more all the time, if people who like tort on green or blue, might not have some amount of color blindness. I've never seen one of these guitars that wouldn't look better with a different pickguard (IMO of course).

I've actually wondered exactly the same type of thing. They can't all be colourblind...seems like there's too many of them! Also, if they are colourblind, then I feel bad for being ableist. But if they're not, then I have no problem yelling at them for their questionable taste

It's just like...so indefensibly clashing that I have to wonder what the heck their houses and clothes must look like. I'm no fashionista, in fact I'm wearing an old hoodie as I type this, but I'm wondering if they're going out in a burgundy vest over a bright blue or green shirt with yellow pants or something.

We had a TV show here in Canada with a guy named Red Green whose solution to all of life's problems was duct tape. That's basically who I'm picturing playing these guitars:



One of the problems I have yet to resolve in all this is that Maggie loves at least one tort-on-sherwood Strat, and she's a photographer with otherwise excellent aesthetic taste. I still can't understand that one - SWG looks absolutely sublime with parchment, white, and mint guards, but tort gives it full-on on tacky "Christmas at TGI Friday's" vibes in my opinion.

I'm normally with this 100% but I'm having a hard time being mad at, for example, this mustang.

That's a great colour that would look amazing with just about any other standard pickguard colour. The tort is still an eyesore to me.

[ThePearDream]

I personally can't stand tort on anything in the cool colour spectrum. White - absolutely. Red? Sure. Black? Why not. Blue/green/purple? Never.

Total agreement here. I'm wondering more all the time, if people who like tort on green or blue, might not have some amount of color blindness. I've never seen one of these guitars that wouldn't look better with a different pickguard (IMO of course).

I've actually wondered exactly the same type of thing. They can't all be colourblind...seems like there's too many of them! Also, if they are colourblind, then I feel bad for being ableist. But if they're not, then I have no problem yelling at them for their questionable taste

It's just like...so indefensibly clashing that I have to wonder what the heck their houses and clothes must look like. I'm no fashionista, in fact I'm wearing an old hoodie as I type this, but I'm wondering if they're going out in a burgundy vest over a bright blue or green shirt with yellow pants or something.

We had a TV show here in Canada with a guy named Red Green whose solution to all of life's problems was duct tape. That's basically who I'm picturing playing these guitars:



One of the problems I have yet to resolve in all this is that Maggie loves at least one tort-on-sherwood Strat, and she's a photographer with otherwise excellent aesthetic taste. I still can't understand that one - SWG looks absolutely sublime with parchment, white, and mint guards, but tort gives it full-on on tacky "Christmas at TGI Friday's" vibes in my opinion.

I'm normally with this 100% but I'm having a hard time being mad at, for example, this mustang.

That's a great colour that would look amazing with just about any other standard pickguard colour. The tort is still an eyesore to me.

Of course, you are right, they can't all be colorblind. Perhaps it is a matter of how much or little visual stimulation individuals prefer. I find tortoise on green too stimulating, where someone else may enjoy the energy of the simultaneous color contrast of the red/green combos. I do like to wear a touch of red (watchstrap or shoelaces or something else small) sometimes, when I wear olive green pants.

I think my biggest gripe with tortoise on color guitars, is just that I really like color and the tortoise interferes with the color perception. I really need a pickguard that won't interfere with the body color, something neutral like white can never look bad on a new finish, while parchment or mint are better for something aged looking, black is generally good for most everything too.

I happen to like pearloid pickguards and even some of the colored pearl guards, which many people find highly distasteful...

[Embenny]

Yeah, I'm the same regarding pearloid guards. I also love sparkle finishes, which many people hate, but I need a white or, at most, pearloid guard to keep them from being too busy.

I think another element is that 99% of "tort" just plain looks like shit to me, irrespective of the colour under it. It's often either a photo or just a flat-looking piece of pepperoni plastic. Spitfire/Lavaguard/acrylic pours with depth to the swirls are way better, but still need the right colour underneath to look decent to me.

I also think there's a significant element of "vintage goggles" (like beer goggles) when it comes to tort. It's "traditional" on sunburst, and so it also ended up on a ton of refinished guitars, which got guitarists to associate it with old, desirable guitars, and then crossed over into being desirable on new guitars.

But I don't even like tort on sunburst, I find it too busy on that as well! A sunburst guitar often has three totally different colours going on, plus additional shapes and contours to the colours since they don't all follow the body's outline perfectly (or sometimes, at all). Then, the guard is cut in a different shape, and contains multiple colours along with its own shapes and texture. It's just too busy, and too much.

My wife, who has no biases toward what is vintage correct or not, looked at the original tort guard on my old '66 D&B Jaguar and went, "What a hideous pickguard, it doesn't match anything else on that guitar. Are you going to change it?"

And she was right. Black knobs, white pickup covers, chrome plates, dark brown rosewood, beige maple, yellow-red-black sunburst...and then a cobblestone of medium brown and burgundy swirls with yellowish flecks. Would I ever choose that for a sunburst Jaguar today, in a historical vacuum where vintage Fender practices were unknown to me?

No way. A nice neutral parchment to match the pickup covers, or black to match the body and knobs would fit right in, and let the very loud sunburst-and-chrome body shine.

The only colour I truly love tort on is OLY, because it breaks up the sea of white and lets the pickup covers stand out and match the body. And even then, it has to be a nice-looking tort.

[shigginpit]

This topic has been, to a degree, very psychologically revealing. While I'm not colorblind I have been known to have questionable taste and only in the strangest arenas (car customization for example) so that may come into play here. There is indeed some nostalgia because the '62 burgundy mist refin (originally sunburst) JM which I previously owned still had the original tortoise guard and when I purchased it, I planned to change it out, but it then grew on me so somewhere in the back of my mind I still think "tortoise is not so bad on an odd duck color". As to olive and red I don't think that's questionable in moderation so maybe my taste once again comes into question. Also while not a fan of duct tape I'm a big proponent of the zip tie, so be it as it may that's probably found in a similar vein.

As to associating tortoise with vintage, I can see where people do that, but I don't think that's my issue. I do however associate pearloid with vintage and without trying to offend anyone I dislike pearloid pickguards on pretty much everything so there's not much about me that thinks "vintage itself is better than modern" when it comes to design aesthetics, although there are aspects of vintage design which I'm attracted to and/or prefer. As to tortoise with sunburst sometimes it looks like hot buttered garbage (in any era), however other times I rather like it and it probably does just depend on the burst in question and the tort in question, I present "exhibit A" this early novo 3 tone burst from the spitfire back-catalogue which to me is very attractive:




As some people already dislike 3 tone burst or refer to it as "clown burst" I guess the preference here is also subjective but if I had $250 to spend on paint supplies for my rat rod project guitar I might do a 3 tone just like this which is making my wallet itchy just looking at it. As I went back through the spitfire catalogue to find this specific guitar (which I knew was there and wanted to use for my example) I was reminded how even a nice looking tortoise guard looks bad on a lot of colors and does not come across as vintage but only as tacky a la golf clothes (no offense to golfers, I do not golf) so a lot of the sentiment expressed here is totally relatable.

That said, I still have a hard time finding the surf green mustang with tortoise unattractive.

[JSett]

It isn't that Surf Green and tort is necessarily bad, it's just that Surf Green and white is definitely better

[Chippertheripper]

Nope.

[andy_tchp]

Nope.

Total agreement here. I'm wondering more all the time, if people who like tort on green or blue, might not have some amount of color blindness. I've never seen one of these guitars that wouldn't look better with a different pickguard (IMO of course).

I've actually wondered exactly the same type of thing. They can't all be colourblind...seems like there's too many of them! Also, if they are colourblind, then I feel bad for being ableist. But if they're not, then I have no problem yelling at them for their questionable taste

[shigginpit]

[MayTheFuzzBeWithYou]

While I mostly agree with the consensus that Tortoise is looking best on Olympic White and Black, I’d say okay or even good on Sunbursts and Reds (strongly depends on the Tort‘s colour, quality and also on the burst/shade of red) - I’m also 100% with you on the topic of putting Tortoise on Greens… especially on Surf Green… Some shades are „difficult“!
That was indeed the case with the OTM Vintera Jag…the pickguard had to go almost immediately… not a fan of it …but on some Blue-tones it works though… more so on the darker blue shades - not so much on the lighter Sonic or Ice Blue Metallic…but can you explain why THIS looks so good?

Here she is!

Jaguar by Bryan Olson, on Flickr

Is it the really amazing Spitfire Tortoise against the generic printed ones? Is it the unique Jag sized JM shaped guard that haunts my mind for quite a while now? (And would look amazing on my BMM) - sure this guitar would look amazing with white/parchment/mint/black too - but I couldn‘t complain about the contrast I see here…