Leaderboard

And here's the guitar. I like it with the guard off.

This bad boy joined the herd over the weekend . . . I'm not normally one for factory aging but the one in this thread

I found this on Reefeeverb. The Heritage H525 is a full hollow thin line guitar with a Florentine cutaway. Maple Laminate top and back with a solid maple rim. Mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard. 2 Lollar dog ear P90s. The H525 is loosely based off of the vintage Gibson ES125. These H525s RARELY come up for sale. But this one was dramatically different. The body was finished in a matte black. Originally is was a VSB (vintage sunburst) kind of a light tangerine burst. The H525s had a cult following among Heritage enthusiasts. But not many were ever made. When I first saw it, I wasn’t a fan of the refin. But after stalking the ad for a couple of days, I decided to pull the trigger. I figured, worst case scenario, I could always get the top refinished at some point if I don’t like it. But it’s actually pretty cool. The seller also upgraded the bridge to a Faber ABR1. I believe everything else is stock. He currently has it setup for 11s. I will be putting 9s on it, so there will be some extensive setup work to be done. I had one of these 525s many years ago and they are such a joy to play. Lightweight and full of warm creamy goodness!!! This is a pic from the seller. I will have pics and a full report after setup.

I got three of them. One of those I gave to my grandson. Gretsch and Randy had a charity auction years ago. A friend of mine tipped me off to the event. He got one. I put bids on 3 and got them all. They are essentially acoustic Super Eagles with floating pups. Together we got the first 4 Synchromatics. I kept two blondes and had a single coil pickup put into a Heritage floating casing made by one of the Heritage guys.

Apologies if this has previously been posted previously. Nice guitar. Nice playing. Topical and Seasonal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8gwla9THg

Congrats. I still have the one you sold me. Love it!

CVS, This is mine. I picked this up one night at Brents house. LK155 had it at PSP one year and I really liked the guitar. When it became available, I jumped.

referencing this thread: https://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/38369-used-530-incoming-inspired-by-trich/ finally got the wolftone dr. vintage humbuckers disguised as P-90s installed in the subject guitar . . . i chose the cream color pickup surrounds and glad that i did . . . tone is a little less "focused" than a 535 but certainly soft and round . . . scratched the itch! thanks for looking!

Hard to answer. I've ordered solid blocks on floating block guitars and floating blocks on solid block guitars in the past. The good old days. Glad I was involved in the Golden Years with Custom Shop Service.

AE definitely means that it's a 2014 not a 2006. In 06 they were stamping the serial number and they started with W ( have a 2006. On mine, the W is above the number. I think they had to get a new stamp as the old one was wearing out). They didn't start hand writing numbers until later. It's hard to say what the '06 designates, and don't know they'll have any special info regarding it's specs. Sometimes Ren or Jim would remember special orders, but if you built a few thousand guitars over 25 years, you wouldn't remember every one. I don't know that they kept a computer database, although by 2015 they may have well converted. If I remember the first two numbers are the days working backwards from Dec 31, and the last two is the number of the guitar issued that day. That would make it the second guitar of Monday Oct 27th 2014. The Seth Lovers could easily been owner changed, or factory installed. It's also possible that the paper label either wasn't installed or came loose. Still, they are of a close date to the guitar serial. I don't think it would be worth the time to pull the pots just to look at date codes.

All the original P90 Heritages that I'm aware of have Jason Lollar pickups. Unless it was a custom order, or the pickups were changed, those would likely be the stock ones. The control cover may even say the pickups. Check there.

How many of the folks in the video have we met? Ren, Pete, Curly, Marv, Arnie, Bill. There are several that I've seen through the years but didn't get names. The rack from the prototype room should have been donated to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. Here's an article I ran across a while back. I never saw the "passing of the torch" headstock before. https://the-guitar.com/a-heritage-of-guitar-making/

I think I'd have this in his hands right away. The rattle can black really wrecks the vibe for me. A nice gloss black would be attractive, but I've always been a fan of finishes that highlight the wood. I'd be hoping the black is laying on top of the original finish so it didn't seep into the pores of the wood.

There's nothing inside except air!

According to Pete: 99% of centerblocks are maple, but there are mahogany & even some spruce centerblocks out there

Yeah, no. I resisted. The only black Friday shopping I did was the weed dispensary. Serious deals going on there, too. 🤣

I like it better with the guard on too, but I personally prefer the shape on the Heritage H150 guards. They just go with the flow of the body shape. And I think whatever guard is on it would need to be aged to match the body. It's not a '59, it's a Heritage.

Here's an old video of them building a semihollow. It appears that the main block is maple. You would want a strong wood, since you need to put your neck joint in there, just like a solid body. Its definitely not mahogany, it's way too light colored. You can see the color difference of the mahogany kerfing below. From what I have read, an ES335 will have a maple block and the filler piece is spruce which is kerfed to bend more easily. If you listen closely, I think that he says they use a basswood insert for the filler section that goes between the top and the block. It's about 3:30 into the video. He also explains about doing floating blocks (top is fixed, back is not).

Yes was going to reply the same. Lollar makes great pickups!

100% right on the pickups. I noticed that oddity also. Here is a close up of the neck pickup. Interesting observation on the ' vs 1. Never thought of that. Being hand written, that makes perfect sense. I heard back from Ren at Heritage. Unfortunately, they don't have the original build order so we'll never know for sure, but I think you are right about owner mods. Probably left the factory with 59s as they are more common and then swapped to the Seth Lovers later. One of these days when I feel adventurous I may pop one or two of the control pots out to see if the solder joints look original or not. For me, the history of this one is more of a curiosity thing than anything else. This would still be one of my favorite guitars of all time because it is just that good. You know every once in a while you notice something special the second you put your hands on it? Thats this one. I was very fortunate to stumble across it .

That is a bit odd with the '06 the serial # looks like AE 06502 So maybe it refers to the 06 in the serial Hardware gets changed all the time. So who knows what the gtr left the factory with Congrats that is a nice 535!

That is unreal! He has some great stuff on his channel. Here is more with that Heritage Kenny Burrell gtr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37ks9pecJc

they are indeed! I took the liberty of posting the images here in the thread

Those are real nice looking guitars!

And of course Katie in finish sanding.

I apologize if this has already been addressed 10 times. HOC is now old enough that it has a lot to search through, even when using the search feature. So here's the first point. The Roy Clark model is supposed to have a floating center block. Mine doesn't. It has a full one. I'm happy with it. I was a bit surprised though. Two questions: 1. What does Heritage use for center blocks and is that variable? 2. Does Gibson use the same wood for their 335-355? Thanks, fellow nerds.

51.50 and a pack of smokes!

When I think of the H525, that’s my first thought. Lonesome George

It wouldn't matter what Heritage put in the guitars, SOMEBODY would complain and change them. I've seen HRWs panned, and then see them sell for $350 a set, and 225s were listed for the same, when you can get Seth Lovers for $200 a set.

So…. After getting this baby setup for 9s, and getting it all dialed in, I have come to the conclusion that…. This H525 is friggin awesome!!! Holds tune like a champ!! The 2 Lollar p90s sound absolutely amazing!!! I’ve never had a Faber bridge on a guitar before. I really like it. It’s a locking bridge. The neck is a very comfortable medium C carve. Sets up with a medium/low action. Frets show minor wear. The guitar is nice and light. It has a slight bit of neck dive, but it’s hardly noticeable. Overall, a very nice playing Heritage guitar with great tone!!!!

Thanks Scott!! My go to guy is Dave Teski. One of the finish guys at Heritage

If you check mine, it doesn't have a fixed bridge!

I'm pretty sure he says "patch wood" there, explaining the filler section, not "bass wood" He says it again a bit later too

I remember talking to Bill Paige about them, it must have been when they first came out: I was telling him about my Gibson ES-135 & saying they should make a thinner H-575 style, as it is more manageable to play & doesn't feed back so easily Bill said " have you heard about our H-525? " and pointed to one on a rack Well there ya go!! Congrats Brent, that looks really nice!

Very nice, enjoy.

Did I do that? 😁 For sure, that's a one-of-a-kind! So now he's got to buy ANOTHER guitar!

Good point! In my defense I was only 8 years old and there was no internet at the time.

I'm also a fan of Wolfetones. I've got Legends in one Zemaitis, Legend and a Fenris in another, Dr V and a Marshallhead in a PRS Custom 22, and a Mean and Meaner P90 set in my SG Special!

I like the sound of smaller amps that are jacked up a little. One of the very best club shows I ever saw was Magic Slim and the Teardrops in Kalamazoo in ‘94. Both guitar players were using Deluxe Reverbs (22 watts) and the stage volume was plenty loud. The tone was glorious.

Yeah, a English old fashion rump roast

I’ve got a 2001 535 with the HRW’s in it. Like it very much. I put a Faber bridge and tailpiece on it, mostly for feel since I’m used to a tune-o-matic under my muting hand. I later put in the Faber bushings and was amazed at how much the tailpiece bushing inserts changed the tone. Made really good even better. They go much deeper and firmer into the maple center block, seem to acoustically couple to the wood much better than the much shorter and looser Schaller hardware. The HRW pickups are very amenable to tone shaping with the amp or pedals and EQ. Can dial in a variety of tones from them very easily. Some say they are “hi fi” but I’d say smooth frequency response curve. Which is ideal for dialing the amp/effects to get a sound. I’d say exhaust all the external tone shaping options before you change parts. A 7 or 10-band EQ can be very helpful to figure out what to do to get where you want to go.

Does this mean Guy has it or has found it? Congrats!

What are the Vegas odds on me finding this guitar?

Saw him play in ‘78. Until that point I had no idea there were only 3 dudes making all that sound! Good times…

Yeah, I'm a big fan. I have a USA Geddy Lee signature model. I really love it too! And a Rick 4003. Black, of course. (couldn't live with the old Rick bridge - neither did Geddy, as he put a BaddAss bridge on it.

and you and I are well set on the H-535 front! I bought a pair of the Legends' cousin, the Dr. Vintage, thinking I'd install them in a Gibson LP Studio. However, the LP sounds too goo to mess with so methinks the 59s in the new 535 will get 86'd and replaced with the Dr. Vs. I guess I've become a Wolfetone fanboi . . .

A very young bass player once bought a Rickenbacker bass, in the footsteps of his hero, Chris Squire. He was most disappointed to find that he didn't sound at all like Chris Squire. The young bass player eventually became quite famous on his own and associated closely with the Rickenbacker bass. Thing is changing parts will make little tweaks in the sound, but you might be chasing a ghost. We don't really know what instrument might have been played in a studio, even when a musician is strongly associated with a particular instrument. Sometimes, maybe there was just something random in the place and he picked it up and played it. Then there's the amp, and the micing and the room, and the engineer's technique to take the track, that particular session or maybe many sessions and so on and so forth. Find the guitar that works for you and your hands, and play the song(s) you want as well as possible. Then, record it. Compare overlayed on the track you want to sound like. See what you can do with various studio/DAW plugins, especially ones that represent the things that might have been in use at the time it was originally recorded. Then do some deducing what is and isn't close to your ghost. In many cases you can get "there" with some EQ, compression and creative dialing in of those.

Quest is ovah, found the sound! Wolfetone Legends in 535 I bought used from Dave's. Neck pickup with tone rolled all the way down. A-B'd with the 535 (Duncan 59s) I purchased at PSP. Noticeable difference . . .