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Heritage Owners Club

NGD (reunion actually): H-530 with some custom touches.


MartyGrass

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Some of you old timers on HOC may remember this.  I posted it about a decade ago.  This is a H-530 with humbuckers and an amber finish.  The pickups are SDs, a Jazz in the neck and a 59 in the bridge.  It was custom ordered that way by someone who lived in Hong Kong.  Once it arrived there he had a pickguard and matching truss rod cover made for it.

I bought it from him, and he assured me that there would be no import tax.  When it arrived the USPS would not release it to me without paying a $200 duty.  They shouldn't have charged that, and they told me that at the time.  They gave me paperwork to fill out to get my money back.  After many months of no response, I gave up.

The good news was that it was a fine guitar.  A few months later I sold it though to one of our West Coast HOC members.  He's had it since.  We remained in touch over the years.  He recently contacted me and asked if I'd want it back.  This was the guitar I most regret selling, so absolutely I wanted it back.  It arrived today in the same condition I shipped it to him in, which is minty.

I let the box warm up half a day.  I tuned it up and it's ready to go.

The neck is fuller than I remembered, between a typical Heritage medium and a 59.  The carve and contour are superb.  (I can appreciate those things better than I did a decade ago.)  Another small thing I noticed is that the f hole wood layers are smoothed with finish.  Heritage often didn't do that back then.

Over the years I've grown to like SD 59s a lot.  The SD Jazz also works very well in the neck and is a little brighter than the 59.  The bottom end is well served though.

The guitar is light at 6 lbs 5 oz.

I'll let the pics speak for themselves now.  There are quite a few, so pardon me!  This is guitar art.

 

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Sometimes you get lucky and come across a special bit of gear. I remember vividly the first time I laid eyes on this guitar, I just started to laugh. Then I played it and it is just so exquisitely unique, humbuckers where the p90s usually are, but it's just right and I never once thought about changing them out for some Lollars (well maybe I did, but, nah). I haven't been playing as much lately, tempus fugit, and I am glad to free her from her California visit. Back to Kalamazoo, or Mecca as I think of it. This guitar gets around! Thanks for the beautiful photos MG! Most of all thanks for sharing this work of art with me for a while. I'll just have to play my Sweet 16 more.

 

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It would be interesting to hear it feed back with humbuckers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seems to me I played that guitar at a past PSP. It's been a few years. Love the pickguard and TRC. It had a fat neck as I recall too.

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  • 1 month later...

That's an absolutely beautiful guitar. I have a Gibbons Memphis ES-330 with Bigsby B7 and humbuckers that I love. I also ordered an Antique Natural Heritage H-530 today. Can't wait to receive it and the first thing I'm going to do is order a similar pickguard ;-)!

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