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No problem. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture.

Sorry about that.

This one is ebony.

I love Oxblood! enjoy that beautiful axe!

Heritage will probably sell you one

I only have 3. And two 575s…. I need a Sweet 16.

I received it today. It's as nice as you think it is. I'm not convinced that the pickups are original. They overdrive my tube amp at low volumes when I'm not using overdrive. I'll look at it later. I have a set of JS Moore humbuckers that are going in it.

Find me a Sweet 16 case and I will

It’s probably an Eagle case. Sell it to me.

Really nice.

I bought a used Sweet 16 but the case seems too big. I have to add padding to keep the guitar from jostling around. Is that normal or maybe this case belongs to a different Heritage model. Anybody?

My understanding is the profit went to Marv. When he made the new neck for my 575 I made the check out to Marv not heritage.

That is a pretty insane collection of H357's!! So what's the story on why Marv decided to start making them again?

I believe he has #2, the twin to mine. They were always made in pairs.

Marv made an all walnut Marvbird for CJ Stanley from wood that he provided to Marv. CJ owns probably about 1/3 of the Marvbird's out there. Part of his collection.

the old one I have has an all mahogany neck. Not sure if they were all built like that. the body dimensions are slightly different too. We had a thread about all tthis a long time ago, probably lost when the site went down interesting topic though. Some of the more fascinating guitars Heritage ever built.

The black and white photo looks like mahogany "wings" and could be maple in the mix. What the old guard could not do is call it a firebird just as they never called H150 a Les Paul.

Yes, if you go through the old catalogs, they were nothing but mahogany:

Well I guess the name has stuck I've always called them Heritage H357's. I'm not sure what ticked Jim off: it was at a PSP & maybe everyone else was fawning over them earlier. Jim is a master guitar builder too. maybe we need a "Jimbird"? I'm sure he's built a lot of Eagles I think the early H357's were all mahogany?

Nice looking H-150, congrats and enjoy!!

Unfortunately, there are a lot of stories about only Marv can make them and legal stuff with Gibson and so on. I'm sure there is truth in there somewhere, but we will never really know without any legal documents to pour through. But since the latest lawsuit against Gibson, the agreement back in the late 80's early 90's seems out the window. I'm only assuming because of the H137's are now coming with pickguards. When I helped the custom run of H137's, Heritage was legally not allowed to add a pickguard; now they do. I wonder if this opens up the possibility of the H-357 again? Even if they don't have the templates, modern technology can 3D scan and create a template to build from. I have faith that Pete has the skill needed to make it happen again. However, Marbirds if I recall were expensive for a Heritage at the time. I could not imagine what the price tag would be today... $5000? $10,000?

I heard Marv explain 357 naming inspiration too I was strolling through the factory once, talking to Jim Duerloo about my H-357 I didn't call it a Marvbird, I just mentioned the 357 Marv built for me & how amazing it was... He said " THAT IS A HERITAGE GUITAR!" in a strong voice & walked away So I don't know who started calling them "Marvbirds" but it might rub some people the wrong way

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.

Thanks! Yeah I was pretty sure there weren't any "Marvbirds" before 2010- so good to know.