TalismanRich

Unfortunately, back in 1959, all my first communion and Christmas money wouldn't have paid for the case of a LP std, much less the LP itself. Just like today, a 6 year old can hardly afford a new LP or H150! When I was taking lessons back in '64-65, it wasn't the Les Paul or SG that caught my eye. The cherry red ES335 in Dee Well's showcase was the object of my guitar desires. Who cared about Les Pauls? They didn't even make them any more!

Hey Steiner, don't look now, but some thief has run off with your knobs and pickguard. I can lend you a pair of small vice grips if you ever need to change the volume or tone controls.

10 years ago, I would have said the same thing about Supro. When I was growing up, Supro guitars and amps were closer to Harmony than to Gibson of Fender. Valco made amps for both companies. Valco also made guitars for Harmony and Supro. You bought a Valco made Supro or National amp until you could afford the big boys. Today, a new Supro amp will run from $800 - 1700. The new guitars start at $700 and go up to $1200+. Apparently there is a market.

Good things come to those who wait. That one looks SWEET.

I'm digging this one. LOVE the addition of the horn section. The 535's got a nice gritty sound to it. Well done. I'm sure Paul's sitting up there with a smile after hearing this one!

Over the years, I've heard numbers thrown around of from around 1500 to around 800 guitars produced per year. In the later years, when the lower numbers were produced, they were working 4 day weeks. Considering the typical 250 work day year, 1500 per year would be around 6 guitars a day being finished. More recent would have been around 4 per day. Of course, if they don't assign numbers on Tuesday, they could have a bunch on Wednesday. A lot of the guitars that they were building were not solid bodies, either. It takes a lot of time to build an archtop vs an H-137. I have only seen one duplicarver on the shop floor, so that's a bit of a limiting factor in carving tops. Its not like setting up 6 body blanks in a CNC and having them pop out 20 minutes later. Typical big companies (Martin, Taylor, Fender, Gibson) are churning out 60-100,000 guitars per year. The problem with Gibson and Fender is that as privately owned companies, they don't have to disclose sales figures. However it appears that the typical daily output is 200-400/day. That's more in a week than Heritage does in a year. That's pretty typical of a small builder. Someone like Collings or Heritage will put out 10 or 20 guitars a week. Single builders will be even lower. Gerard Melancon puts out 2-4 per week. I'm sure you'll find the same from folks like Grosh, Lentz, LSL, McInturff or Nash. In any case, I don't think Heritage is really interested in the $1000 and under market, any more than Collings or Suhr or Anderson. That market is saturated with Mexican, Korean, Chinese and Indonesian guitars.

I pulled out my 535 today, and the tailpiece is almost where yours is. This is a guitar that I've had for many years. There's no way I could deck that one unless I top wrapped it. On the other hand, My 157 with the Schaller stuff is only about 1/8" off the deck. Go figure...

Mike, I'm glad they stood behind the product. I hope it all works out for you. I guess the only question I would have is did this sour you on Heritage guitars, the factory direct model, or both? It sounds like other than the height of the bridge and tailpiece, you actually liked the way the guitar played and sounded.

I understand it was Factory Direct. I agree with you on the lame excuse. If he's not satisfied with the guitar, it should go back. I just suggested he talk with Pete, as he's pretty much in charge of the shop floor from what I have seen. If things are going out wrong, he needs to know about it, so it can be corrected. This will be an interesting case to see how the factory direct model really works for them. If they don't stand behind it, that will kill the factory direct deal in short order! If I was ordering a new Heritage, I would prefer to go through my local dealer, but would probably opt to drive to K'zoo to pick it up at the factory anyway. Its not like I've never been there before.

Just curious, how would you mount that Falcon inlay into the headstock?

It does look high, but it may still be perfectly functional, other than it affecting the feel of your picking hand, which should be important. If a guitar isn't comfortable to play, its not going to be used. All the talk about it "killing the tone" is a bit of a stretch to me. There are guitars with very hard break angles like strats and teles, and archtops with flying trapeze tailpieces which have flat break angles and very long string lengths behind the bridge. They ALL work. They all have "tone" (whatever THAT is). Besides setting the neck angle (which might be off a couple of degrees) its possible that the carve might have be sanded a bit too aggressively on the slack belt sander. Taking an extra 1/8" of wood off the top near the tailpiece will make things look much worse. Many of us have seen this done at the factory and it wouldn't be too hard to sand a bit too much of the arch away. I've seen some photos of other 2018 H150s which didn't look to have the same height on the tailpiece, so I don't think it's like that on every guitar. That said, the " shows off the wood in the light better" argument is pretty lame. I would try to get in touch with Pete Farmer. He can probably advise you better than the sales or customer service guy. He actually makes the guitars and probably knows more than 99% of the folks here or on MLP.

Good move. Its about time that one gets a proper home. Its moved around so much it should be named "the Gypsy"!

Nice Tux, Southhouse! What's the weight on that one? The one thing that I really like about my H140 vs my 157 is that I can stand a lot longer with it on my shoulder. 1.3 lbs really does make a difference. I would think the poplar would also be lighter.

Welcome aboard, Steve. You've got a fine looking pair of guitars there!

I like the idea of a short scale neck. Who needs more than 5 frets anyway. As for having spare time after retirement, its simply not true. I'm trying to spend more time improving my health, so after watching Dr Phil, Dr Oz, The Doctors, and General Hospital there's not much day left! I am hoping to find time to work on my law degree. There seem to be some excellent classes on jurisprudence during the day.