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just off the Fedex truck!

While at PSP, I was checking out a few guitars, but since I had to get over to the VFW, and had little room in the car there was no time to sit down with Mike and discuss things. So yesterday, I gave him a call and now there will be a new addition to the family.....

These are not quite identical twins and are old-school H-555s. One of them was made for Vince Lewis. That one I once owned and can tell you it plays perfectly. I'm told the other one is about the same. I'm trading one of my Heritage ghost built Gretsch Synchromatics plus some dough for these two with a long-standing friend and trading partner. Heritage wasn't run as tightly back in the days these were made, but the Vince one is perfect. I believe the other one is as well based on my friend's experience. The Vince build has Schallers, which I wouldn't change. The other one is stated to have HRWs, but I'm not sure. I recently got a newer build H-535 that has PRS pickups. It is extremely nice. I like the general formal of the semi-hollow.

Back in the club. I had to sell my H-150 Vintage Wine Burst about 6 months ago and immediately regretted it. I recently found another Vintage Wine Burst, this time a 2009 H150 and I am happy again. It needed some TLC as a number of things were not working, switch, pots and the pickups had been swapped out. I completely stripped the guitar and used Virtuoso cleaner and polish to buff out a fair amount of scratches. I had a pair of Seymour Duncan double creams and thought it would be a nice contrast to the darker burst and they seem to match the binding well. I added aged Faber hardware to allow the pickups and reflector knobs to pop. I also removed the pickguard to show off the top, because why should that top be hiding behind a boring piece of plastic. The guitar weighs an impressive 8.4 pounds and has a nice authentic and woody tone. Out of curiosity, does anyone know why the burst is so wide on these? My previous VWB from 2017 was more of a typical burst around the edges only. This one seems to graduate almost to the center of the guitar.

Hi All! I write for Buddy Guy's Legends "BG Blues and Music News" here in Chicago and my recent interview with Ren Wall went up today. Thought many of you would enjoy reading it. Thanks everyone! https://www.bgbluesnews.com/post/ren-wall-ren-aissance-man-of-music

For the last several months, I've been having financial issues and had to sell off most of my name brand guitars. I ended up refinancing to ease the pain a bit. Living on less than $100 a month is not fun. And I have equity in the house, so I'm releasing the pressure and living off of it. It's not like I have heirs to pass anything to. The payout will happen this week, so things will be much easier after that. I just found this on Reverb at a price too good to pass up. It's a 2022. I've been getting away from flame maple, etc. While I appreciate the beauty, I'm far more interested in function right now. So I've been looking at black and oxblood and was torn between a Les Paul Standard and an H-150. The H-150 won. I'll bring it to PSP. And I'm not rebuilding the collection to what it was before. I'm fine with what I have. The guitar should arrive within the next week.

Hi, I play autumn leaves with Heritage's archtop guitar. If you have time, please listen to it. Thank you.

I talk to Marv regularly. He is doing well. Enjoying his daughters and grand and great grandchildren. Always fun to talk to him. He has so much knowledge.

Hello everyone I am fortunate enough to own 3 Heritage guitars - H530, H137 and an H575. The H137 was purchased 5 years ago and the other 2 guitars were purchased last year. All 3 are great high quality guitars. The H137 is a real blues rock monster of a guitar. I get stoked every time a play it. For the most part I play clean (some reverb/delay) with a sight bit of OD when necessary. I use the H530 primarily for western swing blues (still learning). The H575 is for jazz (ie George Benson etc.). I gig about 2-3 times a year and have been playing guitar for many years (modest talent). For those of you who have a H530, I am curious to hear what types of music you play with it. I don't take great pics, these are from the dealer - they are pics of my guitars.

Marv's granddaughter posted this on Facebook. Rare Bird Sighting! A few weeks ago, I posted looking for leads on a MarvBird—a special guitar made by luthier Marvin Lamb, who also happens to be my grandfather. My husband became obsessed with the hunt and started digging everywhere. And thanks to one of YOU, we were blessed with the opportunity to bring one home to the family! Thank you for all the love you continue to show for Marvin’s craft and legacy—it means the world to us.

All this talk of H530s started me thinking that one would be quite nice, then I got a message from Cliff Brown of 633 amps. One of his customers had an H530 to sell and, knowing I was a fan of Heritage guitars, would I be interested? Er, yes... Cliff gave me his contact details, I got in touch and arranged to have a look at the guitar, which was located about 1.5 hours drive away. Suffice to say it's a 2018 model in Antique Natural, and playing it through a 633 Firefly (like the one I recently bought) was enough to convince me to buy it. It's light, 2.69kg or 5lb 15oz, and those Lollar P90s sound great! Some pics...

Thanks for the suggestion to buy from Green Oak, unfortunately they didn’t have the color I wanted but I was able to talk to Heritage and order this!

An image has been leaked to the press.

I've had this guitar for years, and the more I play it, the better it sounds. To be honest, that applies to all the guitars I own, they're all great as I tend to avoid impulse buying: I'm a professional guitarist, so quality is of paramount importance, but this Heritage is something else! The serial number tells me that it was made in 2000. I've had it since 2004, and the only changes I've made are a set of OX4 'Beano' pickups and a Shadow pickup ring tuner, as I like to stay in tune(!) but this guitar excels even in that department: once it's tuned, it stays that way forever, no matter how wild the bends!!! Anyway, after I'd used it regularly for years, it ended up in storage for the last three years, as I ended up playing other guitars, all of which really served the purpose I have to admit, however a few days ago I took it back home, and I'm delighted to say it's by far the best Les Paul, not only in my collection but also the best I've ever had the pleasure of playing, and that includes some very expensive vintage "Holy Grails"! Playability, resonance, range of tones, and ultimately looks, it ticks all boxes. This is one guitar I'll never part with, that's for sure.

Paul @ Green Oak has been serving HOC members for over 20 yrs as a very straight guy. I also have some incredible pieces of unsold, full warranty one of a kind Heritages. https://www.gbase.com/stores/american-classic-guitars I REALLY stepped back from selling during my divorce and I should get on getting about 50 guitars out in the real world!

Or Green Oak Guitar. Green Oak Guitar | Gbase.com > Guitars Amps & More

Having just been through the factory 2 weeks ago, things are a bit more modern, but it's still a relatively small operation compared to a Fender, Gibson, Cort or World Music. There aren't any conveyor belts carrying a hundred guitars around the building. What you see is people at benches with a guitar, maybe 2 people in the spray booth with a rack of 15 or 20 guitars hand spraying the guitars as they did for decades before. On one side, there's a guy hand wrapping binding with a half dozen guitars hanging next to him as the binding. My oldest Heritage is an 87 H140, and my newest is a 2025 H-530 that I got yesterday. I play all my old ones, I'm sure I'll play this one just the same. I love 'em.

The lighting in my office was just right this morning.

I started building amps a couple of years ago and really enjoyed doing it. I started taking them to all my gigs and then sold all my other amps (aside from a ‘62 Concert). Then one day after a gig I was approached by a guitarist that wanted me to build him an amp. Hmmmm, so I do it or not? Well I did it. First I got business insurance and an LLC then I got to it. A few weeks later I sold him an amp and Southbound Amplification was born! The Cypress model is what he bought. It is based on a 6g3 only channel one is cleaner and two is dirtier. There is also a master volume, a cut control, a negative feed back switch and a boost for channel two. The picture is the amp he bought. I have a Cypress amp that looks like this too, which I gig with but I don’t have a cut control on my amp. I really don’t think it needs the cut control imo. I’m still experimenting with features and design for what I think is the perfect 6g3 type of amp. This amp has the ability to run either KT66 or 6v6 tubes for 30 or 20 watts. With KT66 tubes and a Alessandro neo GA-SC-X speaker the amp weighs in at 25 pounds which is still portable. I added test ports to rebias the tubes without having to pull the chassis. The switch in power tubes does require a rebias since it is a fixed bias amp and the transformer I’m using supplies a switchable voltage variation. The KT66 tubes sound really good in this design. I’m super excited about building amps and have other models I’m working on with more and less wattages. Who knows if I can make it a successful business, which for me would be just a small supplement to a retirement I hope to take in a couple of years.

I was looking for a dedicated performance photo thread and didn't see one (apologies if I missed it!), but wanted to share a few photos since I've been playing the '94 H150 as my primary live guitar lately. Band has had a wave of local gigs lately and hoping to have debut album out August/Sept: https://makingfriendsasadults.bandcamp.com/track/bad-time

To put this politely, reasonable people have different opinions. I have no quarrel with someone whose preferences differ from mine. I would appreciate a certain humility that precludes stating an opinion as a universal fact though. I do understand that love of guitars is a certain manifestation of mental illness that I suffered with most of my life. I am confident of this much on the topic: weight relieved H-150s weigh less.

In my life I have witnessed in myself and others the same feeling of an instrument not fitting well. I have also seen looks of disbelief. A friend of mine was asigned the upright bass in high school. I had a cello. It didn't matter how we liked it. I had a Howard Roberts as a kid. It was big. My teacher said after a while I'd get used to it. He was right. But we are grown men. We don't have to put up with that anymore. One of my guitar teachers was Joe Fava. We were in his small teaching room, and he would smoke. He focused on technique and stopped me everytime my fingers didn't move correctly. It was constant criticism with occasional "good". I practiced this uncomfortable technique two hours a day. Eventually it became natural. Violin players told me the same thing. I wouldn't dare to complain. He'd say play your instrument properly or quit. Eventually it because okay. I went through the same with a bass clarinet. I have a H-575, two actually since I'm borrowing one, but like the feel of the H-530 a bit better. To get sentimental, I enjoyed the days being a kid and having a strong teacher who told me exactly what I'm supposed to do. It cut out a lot of noise from the other voices. Then Hendrix came along.

A flying V banjo would be pretty cool!

Try Green Oak Guitar.

I was DEFINITELY NOT in the market for a new guitar!!! I had just sold an extraordinary H157 to a good friend of mine a couple months ago, so I knew how awesome these new Custom Core H157s are. Then I go poking around on the Sweetwater’s website, looking at what new Heritage Guitars they’ve got in….and I see it A beautiful SILVERBURST H157!! And is was a demo! Normally a $4400 guitar, marked down to $3200!!! Only 8.5 lbs!!! ”I really can’t afford this”. “I really don’t need it” Throw common sense into the wind….i had to get it. More pics and a full review to follow!!

Where is the best place to say hello and tell people a bit about me and my Heritage guitars?

I don't need to! FedEx said that it was scheduled between 12:40 and 2:40. I got to the doctors office a bit early, and got in right away. I was out and home by 1:20. The truck showed up at 2:08, so it all worked out. I gave it a couple of hours to cool down from the FedEx truck (it was almost 90 around 1:00). I've tuned it up and made a slight adjustment because the low E was buzzing from fret 5 to about 12. Give it a day or two at tension, and I'll check the relief and set the final action. The rest of the strings were fine. I gave it a quick workout with some Sultans of Swing and Come On Part 1. So far, so good. It's a nice weight, and well balanced.

I finally was able to spend some time with the Heritage tonight. I took off the factory 10s, put on a fresh set of 9s and did a full setup along with fretboard conditioning. This H157 displays all the signs of Heritage’s top tier quality and construction. Fit and finish are great!! Fret work (PLEKED from the factory) is great too!! Electronics are also great quality. Low friction pots. Switchcraft toggle and jack. Heritage pickups. I don’t know the specs on these new Heritage pickups. They call them 225 Classic Hot Pickups. To me, they sound like an Alnico 4 or 5. They sound really good!! The neck is a beefy 50s carve. Feels great. Not a baseball bat. Only 8lbs 6ozs! So light for a 157! Tone and playability are both superb. Warm, rich tone. It’s an amazing guitar!!

I read a ton of stuff about the newer ones having better quality control and from what I've seen I guess that is true. But like others have said on here, I just feel a real heart and soul connection to the guitars that were built pre-2015. There's just something about that group of guys that came out of Gibson building those, and it's just a whole different thing. I'm not saying the new ones are bad. They're incredible actually. I have played several and every one of them is top notch and stellar! But the old ones definitely have more of a "hands-on" feel, versus a "automated, quality controlled" feel in 2025. Again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but everything pre-2015 just feels like it was more of a "hands-on" kind of a thing, even if there are some bumps and bruises along the way on some of them. I guess I'm calling that character! LOL. Kind of a different topic, but I am still upset that the "Ascent" line came out and has the full-on Heritage logo on it, just like all of them have for years. I totally get creating a line made overseas to compete with that market, but I wish "Ascent" would have been at the top of the headstock in big letters and maybe just put "By Heritage" on the truss rod cover or something. But it is what it is at this point.....

Stock market has been good to me lately, solved the "dilemma" and purchased both! Time for a cold 🍺

I have a H-555 on order.

Marv told me he never made a prototype. They are all Marvbirds to me. According to Marv he made them all. He did all the tooling and templates for them. His best estimation of how many he made was around 75. He told me he wished he would have kept a complete list of them. He said he named the model a 357 was a little dig at Gibson for their Firebird 3, 5 and 7.

Birthday celebration part 2 (the CC H150 Goldtop was part 1). I've had the 633 Drive King for a few years now, and was intrigued when Cliff Brown at 633 brought out the Firefly, a 7 watt Class-A 1x10 combo. It's basically the Dragonfly with the overdrive circuit from the Drive King added. I ordered one in February and picked it up yesterday. It sounds very good... The controls are Volume, Tone (with a pull switch to toggle between "Tweed" and "Blackface"), Drive, Level, Reverb and Power. The Drive switch and Cab-sim output re located underneath at the back, while Drive can also be activated with a footswitch. The range of tones available is pretty wide by judicious use of the volume, drive and power controls, from a sparkling clean to Santana-like sustain, all at reasonable volume levels. Here's designer Cliff Brown putting the prototype through its paces... Some photos...

Rich Severson with Pete Farmer. Interview starts around 1:53. It's a good one.

Remember when ordering a custom from Jay Wolfe, Graham asked my opinion on CNC vs hand carved / cut. All I had was a gut response based on internet chatter. We the end user /consumer of fine guitars know little about building vs manufacturing. We purchase and play. Pete's "wood therapy" displays the vast knowledge gap between the people who visit and work at 225 Parsons. RESPECT

Staying on the history of Marv at Gibson and Heritage. Marv sent me this picture last night. He made this one off when Gibson was still at Parsons St. He called it his Bo Diddley guitar. There is a lot more story behind it. He told me it has the original strings on it from around 1980. I told him it's time for a string change. We had a chuckle about that.

I talked to Marv last night. He sounds good and said he is feeling well. He told me he will be turning 86 this year. He is enjoying life and his offspring that is getting extensive. We were talking about H-357s and the one he is holding. That is one of the Korina models he did. Came from California. He brought up Ron Warren and he hadn't heard he passed. He loved the picture Ron did for him.

Then there are some guys like Tower Of Power guitarist Bruce Conte, who are SO badass, that they even wear out the pickguard! 🙂

I was in the showroom at the PSP gathering this last summer and really liked the vintage wine burst finish on this H-150. I kind of impulsively bought it and I am glad I did. It is hard to find this finish on new models anymore.

The Marv Wineburst that Kuz was kind enough to send on to me... And for you blasphemers, here it is with a proper pickguard...

Ah! so you're the guy who snagged that guitar. When I talked to Mike on that Wednesday, he said it was gone. I got the Antique Sunburst that was hanging next to it. I thought about the possibility that they might suspend the standard series and concentrate on the Custom Cores. In that case, I'm glad I grabbed my 530 when I did. I'm enjoying the lighter weight when I standing for 2+ hours, and it's very comfortable to play, just like the 535. I've play a few times through my Princeton, and it really sounded good going through my Strymon Iridium when I was jamming with some friends.

An update.... after letting things settle down, I've done a bit of setup work. A 1/4 turn tighter on the truss rod, and some adjusting on the bridge and it's playing nicely. 5/64 for the low E string, about a business card worth of relief around the 8th fret. It's much closer to my 535 now in feel. RE: the sound. I'm actually surprised it's darker/deeper sounding that the 525, even though they both are maple and have Lollar P90s. I brought the poles up on the G B and E of the neck pickup and took the low E down a bit. Sound is more balanced between strings now. It rings very well. And just like the 525, if you have the amp up a bit, you can get it to howl on a nice A or D string! Eternal sustain!

It’s difficult to express how much fun it is to visit the MuZeum. Being back to back with PSP helps to draw parallels. If you like amps, a trip to the Z-Fest is mandatory. It is every bit to amps that PSP is to guitars. Good people, great sound, good times! IIRC, RJSanders said: “Boutique amps for boutique guitars! Many Thanks to Jaguarguy and the folks of ZTalk!

I got this today from Ren, the historian at Heritage:

FYI- I purchased a 2016 new old stock H155M in vintage wine burst last year at the plant. It was hanging in the showroom and I couldn’t resist. They made me a very sweet deal. They buffed it, gave it a PLEK job, and a setup before shipping it out to me. Heritage takes care of their HOC constituents.

I am assuming that even though the tuner is covering the brand, it looks like an H-530. This guy gets a nice smooth tone on those P-90s.

And it has a flame maple pickguard like the originals! 😍