Leaderboard

That is a beauty!

Hello everyone from Rome! This picture says more than one which shows the details of the wood

Actually, it was about a week ago at PSP. The display room was filled with temptations and i succumbed. I've been thinking about a 530 for about a year but I hear first with my eyes, which so far has about a 90% success rate. I just didn't see one that I was willing to pull the trigger on. I was afraid if I tried one in a color I wasn't thrilled with, I would love the way it plays and wind up with a player not a stunner. I think I have bases covered on this one! I heard this one from across the room, and it was everything I was wanting. The neck is perfect for me as was the factory setup. Mike at Heritage told me this is one of two, River Blue, they did last year. The other one went to France. Anyway, I brought it home and am loving it. One other superficial feature I love on this one is the headstock inlay is white/ pearl and not amber. I can't wait to get home from this current work trip and do some more bonding.

Late to the thread here, but I drove over to Dave's the other day and brought this one home. I ended up playing six CC H-535s and two Gibson CS Historic ES-335s, and this one was clearly the winner in terms of tone and playability. I honestly believe that the new 2025 bridge systems on both the H-535 and H-150 guitars are a huge improvement over the previous Pinnacle bridges:

A friend of mine bought a natural 575 from a Guitar Center years ago. When he got it, he found some neck issue that could not be corrected by adjustment. He took it to the legendary Aaron Cowles, who was doing some upscale work for Heritage at the time. Aaron told him the neck needs replacement. I don't recall the details. Aaron did the replacement. Here's an interview with Aaron. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/gibson-guitar-oral-histories/1/ Aaron died quite a few years ago. I ended up hanging on to the guitar for my friend but didn't play it. Yesterday he sold it to me without ever taking it to his home. If you are feeling sorry for him, consider he has more guitars than anyone else I know. So this is has Schallers. I scoped the innards. It's parallel braced (not all are). Aaron made the neck and but a plain ebony board on it. It's a 3 piece maple. The only piece he got from Heritage is the headstock overlay. My friend requested a five piece neck but Aaron recommended a 3 piece. Aaron fretted it. There are no nibs. That's true with other Aaron builds. Aaron was one of the best of the Kalamazoo luthiers yet a simple man to understand. He always had his pistol handy in shop. He charged very little for his hard work. His humble presentation contradicted his master skills at making guitars and mandolins. The guitar plays well. The neck is to me a medium C carve, maybe a medium plus. It sounds good.

This guitar is a monster player. Playing it with three different amps, with and without a drive pedal. Sounds huge and beautiful no matter what it is paired with. I had to stop because my ears were ringing.

I know, this is a silly, maybe even sophomoric topic. But, that said, this is the Heritage Owners Club, right?! 🙂 And haven't we all thought about all of the many Heritage gitfiddles we've owned, played or lusted after? You know, that uber-flame-top H-(whatever) model that you never should have let go. Or maybe that sweet axe that you've worn down the frets on, and rubbed the finish off, due to its irresistible tone and feel? It doesn't matter if your favorite is an Ascent, Standard, Custom Shop, Core, Artisan-aged, Custom one-off, or an old school from the early days of Heritage. Bring it! And share a photo if you have one. No model is off limits as long as it is a Heritage Guitar. I'll kick things off with my all time favorite model...it's the no longer in production H525. I've been blessed to own two of these great instruments, but my all time favorite is the one-off custom that Marv built to my specs back when they built almost anything customers or dealers asked for. Here's a photo of Marv just after spraying it, taken by our dear friend, Ron (High Flying Bird) Warren. OK, YOUR TURN!! LET'S SEE YOUR FAVORITE HERITAGE!!

Yeah, it's the horn that's going to make or break a guitar. You simply can't play a guitar if the horn doesn't have the exact dimensions of that someone drew up 70 years ago and endorsed by a Youtube personality. Sorry, I don't get your point other than trying to start a pissing match. Oh yeah, that horn of which you speak has changed numerous times over the years at that "other company". Personally, I think it's the silly poker chip that is holding back the Les Paul player from being successful. Seriously, if the stupid guitar player has to stop, look down at the front of his guitar and decide if he's playing rhythm or "treble", he needs to find another occupation. Speaking of which, how exactly do you play "treble"? Does that mean you can only use the notes on the treble clef?

Today was designated as a work-around-the-house day, so I went to my T-shirt drawer and pulled one out at random. Haven't seen this one in a while. From the very first PSP! That led to an unbroken string of PSPs Marg and I attended, until Covid interrupted things. I recall that first PSP very well. Only something like 16 or 17 of us HOC members there. Plant tour by Ren. As Pressure would say, good times. But good grief, that was 18 years ago! Were you there?

the Millie i bought from Brent showed up last night. Haven’t had a lot of time with it yet, but man oh man this is a great guitar! Brent comes through again! Minty fresh, like it has been played very little. Tuners still feel new. Sounds more like a semi-hollow because of the chambered body, which is exactly what i was looking for. No feedback issues but still a big and round enough sound for jazz, soulful blues, R/B, and fusion. My band has been getting loud and my archtops often feedback. I guess I’ll be one of those players that switches guitars depending on the song. Yes, overkill for the kinds of gigs we get, but it will give me more flexibility to get funky or louder jamming and use some drive/breakup when the moment calls for it. Just plain FUN. I’ve been playing straight ahead for so long I’m ready to get down and dirty before i get too old. I’ll post some pictures over the weekend, but they probably wont be as good as Brent’s. It really is as gorgeous in person as it is in the photos in his for sale post. Thank you @brentrocks for the great transaction and fast shipping, well packed as always. I also got it a friend: a UA Enigmatic ‘82 pedal. They make a great pair.

This is a Heritage that I’m VERY excited about. (I don’t get too excited about much anymore. Lol) It’s a 2006 H157? I think? I say that because it does have binding on the back of the body….but…doesn’t have multi ply binding on the top. It does have an Ebony board (with abalone blocks) and it does have a bound and inlayed headstock. I haven’t seen the control cavity sticker yet. Lol This guitar was sold by the original owners brother…his brother was a gigging musician in Georgia. Unfortunately he had passed away recently. He told me that his wife custom ordered this guitar for her husband in 2006. I really don’t know much about it. Don’t know how the frets are, don’t know the neck size, don’t know what pickups are in it, don’t know how much it weighs….. Look at that top though….nice bubble quilt, definitely a custom order!!! The fella I got it from seemed very honest and trustworthy, so I decided to take a chance on it. These were the only 5 pics I had to go by… Its on the UPS truck for delivery today!! STAY TUNED!!!!

2006 Heritage H157 Custom order one off. *AAAAA Quilt top *Single ply binding on both sides of the body (it’s usually 5 ply) *Abalone blocks (usually pearl) *Ebony fretboard *One piece mahogany body *One piece mahogany neck *Bound and Inlayed peghead *Gold locking Sperzel tuners *Gold hardware *8lbs 14ozs *Really nice 59-ish neck carve Just got this today from a gentleman in Georgia. He was selling it because it belonged to his late brother, who was a gigging musician. He said his wife custom ordered it in 2006 The original pickups, SD Seth lovers, were poorly wired into a rats nest harness…the tone pots didn’t even work. So I rewired it, new pots, Russian PIO caps and different pups. I wanted something with more bit…so I went with a SD JB/Lollar Imperial combo…and it sounds great!!!!! The original nut is pretty worn. The D and the G buzz just a bit. I’ll probably take it in for a new bone nut soon. The frets are original. With minor wear. You can tell it was played. There’s a bit of buckle rash on the back. A few dings n dents. Nothing more than a Murphy lab relic. Lol. 😆 The neck on this guitar is perfect, IMO. To me it feels like a custom core neck that went on a little diet. Lol. 😂 It’s not a boat anchor ⚓️. Basically 9 lbs. for a 157….thats not terrible. It plays and sounds so dammm good. Wow!! 🤯

I’m so happy that after 25 years…. Im still providing beautiful guitars to people across the country and making new friends and seeing responses like this!!! It really makes me happy. 😃 @tsp17 I hope this guitar brings you much happiness!!!

Multiple favorites for different reasons, but here’s one (if i have to pick just one):

Gotta say, Heritage has made some darn pretty gee-tars.

It's hard to choose favorites. Here are two. The first is a Johnny Smith 18". The second is a H-530 custom made with humbuckers.

What do they say? Love the one your with! Lately I've been playing this beauty, the one Kuz sold me! Marv put his special sauce into this paint job! And I had Dan at Mojo Axe make me cool looking vintage style pickguard so I can plant my pinky while I fingerpick on it! A few weeks ago. I pulled this one of the case and it was buzzing on the 3rd fret G note of the low E string. Well I noticed the strings hadn't been changed since I bought it from Kuz. How do I know that? They were D'Addarios, and I never use them. So I polished the frets, put my favorite Pyramid nickel roundcore strings on it, gave the truss rod a turn, and voila, it snapped right into shape! As I was testing the new setup I was making up licks with that G note and came up with a new song for the band, here's the demo...

This is from when it was new 10 years ago. Not just my favorite Heritage but my favorite guitar since then. Just got it back from the luthier where it had a new nut put on, fret dressed and new bridge slots. Ready for another ten years.

Lot's of beautiful guitars in this thread! I have 4 Heritage guitars and it is really tough to choose which one I like the best - My 2018 H137 is a real blues rock monster!

Favorite, that's a tough one. I would have to narrow it down to two, the 535 and the Millennium 2000. If I had to pick just one, it would probably be the 535. The red semihollow was my first "guitar lust". When I was taking lessons at Dee Wells as an 11 yr old, I would see that red 335 (or 345, or 355.. I didn't know the difference) in the display case, and I wanted one! It was the second Heritage that I bought, found it used on Ebay years ago. I still love that style of guitar 60 years later. I've had lots of different guitars, but I still favor them!

This is my 1999 H150 with ebony fretboard...

These are my favorites, A Heritage Johnny Smith and its Mini-Me The Heritage Millennium SuperLight.

My 1996 H535 has been stellar since I bought it many years ago. It can do anything. Always easy to play, always sounds great. The only Heritage still in my personal cache today. However, my H150 20th Anniversary is the beauty of the family. And it happens to be the best playing, best sounding solid body I've ever owned. Excellent in all respects except one. I couldn't get used to the weight, and this one now resides with son Chris. I've had other Heritages over the years. Sold two of them (H155 Millie and H137) and bought them back shortly thereafter. Had Kuz's H525 for a while but couldn't get comfortable with its physical size and let it go to TalismanRich, who apparently is very happy with it. But the H535 and H150 are the standouts.

I know we are supposed to be nice around here, but I feel this is truley the rant of a troll. This diatribe should have ended after sentence number five, right before where the second paragraph should have started. So in defense of Heritage, who I think has really stepped up their game, and is putting out some great guitars, I have something to say (In my best Utah Morman vernacular off course)... Fudge off Shizz head, get you own guitar company. With your new company, you can learn how to fix croooked archtop bridge posts and tuners. Then you can get back to playing your Heritages you love. Okay moderators. I probably deserve punishment for this post, but it was worth it. Gratuitous Heritage picture...

Me & the 3 amigos.

I'll add two more pics. This is one of their Gretsch Synchromatics.

My favorite Heritage and me waiting to go play at a jam. 2001 H535 in blonde, with HRW's. I put the Faber bridge and tail on it, and a set of lightweight Gotoh tuners. The heavy Rotomatics were really stiff from disuse. I got this one used a few years ago. It was absolutely pristine with virtually no sign of play. I picked it up browsing at a guitar shop, wasn't even looking. But it instantly had "the sound" that I look for in a great semi-hollow 535 or 335 style guitar. It had a problem that explained the utter lack of play. The fretboard was like a roller coaster. Some heroic efforts to level the frets on the wavy fretboard had been done to it along its history. Some of the frets were tall as brand new wire, others were under .030 tall, what most of us would call worn out. The fret tops were level, but the board wasn't. The neck itself, straight as an arrow. The surface of the board was nuts. I tried everything I could think of, but just one day said, "this is it." and grabbed my fret puller pliers and took them all out. I put some fine grit paper on my leveling beam and lightly sanded, which revealed all the high and low areas. Pretty much like a lunar landscape it turned out. Also, I measured the radius at around 9.25 inches which kind of meandered up and down the neck. Clearly, this one escaped the factory with a wonky fretboard. The fret nibs were all intact, so no question it was built this way. I leveled the fingerboard and flattened the radius down to about 10". I was already sanding into the pearl dots by then. Didn't want to get into replacing inlays, so I stopped about there. Put in a set of Dunlop medium jumbo wire. With the board leveled out, the frets went in nicely and only needed minimal leveling after installation. I put in a CNC-cut nylon 6/6 nut. Nylon was used on the Gibson's of the late 50's and early 60's. It is a fabulous material for guitar nuts. Hard, durable, and extremely slippery. The Faber hardware went on after. The Schaller stuff was shiny and clean without a single speck of corrosion, but I'm so used to tune-o-matic bridges, I changed it. The most amazing bit of that were the deep bushings Faber offers for their ABR and the tailpiece. They sink much deeper and tighter into the wood and really get in that maple center block a lot better than the short and skinny Schaller bushings. The tone change from the bushings alone was remarkable. And here she is. This is a 100% keeper for life guitar. It's everything a semi-hollow guitar should be. Plays like butter, sings like a bird.

Put this board together over the last few days. Pretty much my old gig board with similar pedals. I used to have two timmy's, one on all the time slightly above unity with my amp. I will give the Duke of tone a good try as a replacement for the second timmy. The Jetter Red2 is rock and swamp and each works out as a solo boost for the other. Red is Marshall and blue goes from transparent to thick and swampy. MS3 is trem, delay, etc. I used to have two DD7s 105-120ms/350-400ms. I can do this on the MS3. The only other pedal I used was a trem pedal. The MS3 as delay and mods should work out fine. I used to use it as a switcher and fx controller. What you got?

Received this when the sight was down. Honestly underwhelmed. I would have thought Heritage would have done some more special items on it. I have already talked to Custom Inlays about doing a few additions to it. I'll make it Special.

Just back from a spending spree,and added a 1988 H535 to the herd,see Bay Watch in these forums under fat bottom guitars for pics.Nice instrument with 40 years honest wear.Takes me back up to 5 Heritages,and I think 80 guitars in total (surely this is not excessive !).I do like the earlier Heritage instruments.

For some odd reason, I couldn't include text with the pic above. That's my '21 Custom Core 150. 8 lbs. 4 ozs. Now sporting a pair of '61 PAF's out of a Barney Kessel. As was the case with a lot of hollow bodies, the pickups are out of phase. Middle position does that marvelous Peter Green thing. This is a fabulous instrument.

I currently own five Heritage guitars and recently sold my old 1992 H-535. Of all of them, though, I'd have to say that my all-time favorite is the Eagle Classic that I bought new from Jay Wolfe in 1996. At the time I just wanted to purchase a quality jazz box that would carry me well into my senior years. This one gets the least amount of play time than any of the others, but while I consider my others to be tools of the trade, I think of this one as being more like a collectible piece of art that also reflects the beautiful craftsmanship of electric hollow-body guitar building. It's just one of those guitars that will always remain with me.

With some familiar faces for us old timers.

You are really out of touch with today's Heritage Guitars. This isn't 4 old Gibson employees anymore. Two are still alive, two have already passed. Does anyone expect that guys who started working in the late 50s should be building guitars today? These guys are in their 80s. Today, it's a different company. First point about giving them an F for not innovating.... Poppycock. By Jim Deurloo's own admission at PSP last month, when they opened they were making just about anything anyone thought of. Look back at catalogs from 1989 or 1993. Stat, Little One, H-110, SAE and SAE custom, HB1, HB2 and HB IV bass, H-140, Mandolins, banjos, Academy, Prospect, Mark Slaughter, H-574, H-480 acoustic, Parsons Street III and V, Millennium. They tried making unique guitars... they didn't sell. Guitarists wanted the traditional models, 150 and 535 are the bread and butter. The various jazz boxes were well received. I suspect Heritage sells more hollow bodies guitars today than Gibson, who don't even list a traditional jazz box in their current lineup. It's the same reason Fender sells a dozen Strats and a dozen Teles for every Jazzmaster or Jaguar. How many Coronados do you see them sell today? Gibson sells Les Paul, SG and 3xx variants by the truckload. How many Covus, Marauder, Victory or RDs do they sell? They're in the catalog. I don't see many on the Guitar Center wall. As for not having endorsed artists and heavy advertising, that costs money. They simply didn't have the budget to put full page ads in every guitar magazine every month. Perhaps if they had been charging exorbitant prices, they could have bought more ads, but they also might have sold fewer guitars. Gibson, Ibanez, Fender, probably spend more on their annual advertising budget that Heritage made in a year! As for nobody knowing Kenny Burrell, Mimi Fox, or Henry Johnson, you must be looking from a rock perspective. They are well known in the jazz world. Gary Moore had a signature, Alvin Lee did as well. David Paul had the blue jazz box. I've seen Buddy Whittington playing a stock H-140. Alex Skolnick? Having name on the guitar doesn't automatically mean that fans flock to buy them, especially when you have limited production capacity. How many variants of the Stratocaster do you need? Clapton, Beck, Eric Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jimmy Vaughn, Stevie Ray, Robert Cray, Cory Wong, Rory Gallagher. That's just part of the artist models. The same goes for Les Paul variants. Reinvent the wheel.. .over and over and over again. Finally, I think you are looking at past history. Today, you can find Heritage guitars at Wolfe, Daves, Eddies, Sweetwater, Chicago Music Exc, Cream City, Jimmy Wallace. That's just the bigger US dealers selling US made guitars. They have an import line, akin to Epiphone, Fender Mexico, Squire or PRS SE. It's not to everyone's liking, but its brand building. And having played samples of the Ascent+ guitars, they actually played quite well. I would have no problem walking on a stage with an Ascent+ 150 or 137. Heritage is doing just fine. They are shipping out guitars by the dozen, not 2 or 3 a week. It's a different company.

I agree that the half & half fretboard inlays were not the best design. I had Heritage correct that with a Millie custom build in 2011. Sunburst Spruce Millie from 2011 on the right Millie SuperLight from 2017 on the left. I had a change in guitar philosophy in my later custom builds preferring more wood less shell.

Never sell. My youngest daughter has dibs on it.

I have a Heritage Standard H-137 that I purchased in 2020. It was built in 2018. The P90's in this guitar (I think) are Lollars. The guitar sounds great to my ears and I have no plans to change out the pick ups. A great axe!

Just dropped it off with my tech to install Seth Lover pickups, fresh set of 11’s, and some minor adjustments. Will report back. Getting it ready for a jazz groove/funk/soul/rock band project that has been percolating in my head. Tunes like Lucky Southern, Cantaloupe Island, Valdez in the Country, Killer Joe, Back at the Chicken Shack, Song for my Father, Comin’ Home Baby, some classic rock jam tunes, some “acid jazz” as the kids call it today. Think Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, or El Chicano for the ballpark. Electric, rhythmic, danceable, but still with a jazz vibe. Getting older sure motivates you to get some shit done before you can’t anymore. Been wanting to do a project like this one for a long time.

ALL DONE!!! Playing and sounding great!!!

May have posted this in the past, But since we're focusing on fuzz here.... Never a fan of it, but given this is a Lucinda Williams tune, and I'm a big fan of the fearless Stuart Mathis, I thought...why not get way out of my little box. This is from the Be Good To Yourself project, and since we were tracking nearly thirty songs, I figured I'd better come up with a variety of tones and approaches. I'm pretty much down with what Randy (fdx99) observes in his notes, above. As I recall this track was my Tele for electric rhythm, a Nashville tuned Red Label Yamaha FG-110, and the fuzz was my Nash Strat, bridge pickup, into my Low Power Tweed Twin clone. The fuzz was an MXR Hendrix Octavio, which has a pretty great fuzz! Fuzz is there in a couple of early chords, but doesn't really appear until the guitar outro, last 1:30-ish of the tune. I'm a little proud of this one. The vocalist is eighteen-year-old phenom Māya Beth Atkins.

Mostly because Marv’s DNA is all over this one.

The original post reads like AI that hasn't paid very close attention in an eighth grade English composition class....

The early 150's had the same horn and Heritage was asked to change it. If your next post is about the headstock, it works better and Heritage was not sued over it. Most of us on the HOC appreciate function over form.

This was from the 2018 tour. It's the same rope method we was this year.

Here’s your fret tapping tool!