Leaderboard

For the last several months, I've been having financial issues and had to sell off most of my name brand guitars. I ended up refinancing to ease the pain a bit. Living on less than $100 a month is not fun. And I have equity in the house, so I'm releasing the pressure and living off of it. It's not like I have heirs to pass anything to. The payout will happen this week, so things will be much easier after that. I just found this on Reverb at a price too good to pass up. It's a 2022. I've been getting away from flame maple, etc. While I appreciate the beauty, I'm far more interested in function right now. So I've been looking at black and oxblood and was torn between a Les Paul Standard and an H-150. The H-150 won. I'll bring it to PSP. And I'm not rebuilding the collection to what it was before. I'm fine with what I have. The guitar should arrive within the next week.

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.

Birthday celebration part 2 (the CC H150 Goldtop was part 1). I've had the 633 Drive King for a few years now, and was intrigued when Cliff Brown at 633 brought out the Firefly, a 7 watt Class-A 1x10 combo. It's basically the Dragonfly with the overdrive circuit from the Drive King added. I ordered one in February and picked it up yesterday. It sounds very good... The controls are Volume, Tone (with a pull switch to toggle between "Tweed" and "Blackface"), Drive, Level, Reverb and Power. The Drive switch and Cab-sim output re located underneath at the back, while Drive can also be activated with a footswitch. The range of tones available is pretty wide by judicious use of the volume, drive and power controls, from a sparkling clean to Santana-like sustain, all at reasonable volume levels. Here's designer Cliff Brown putting the prototype through its paces... Some photos...

Remember when ordering a custom from Jay Wolfe, Graham asked my opinion on CNC vs hand carved / cut. All I had was a gut response based on internet chatter. We the end user /consumer of fine guitars know little about building vs manufacturing. We purchase and play. Pete's "wood therapy" displays the vast knowledge gap between the people who visit and work at 225 Parsons. RESPECT

Staying on the history of Marv at Gibson and Heritage. Marv sent me this picture last night. He made this one off when Gibson was still at Parsons St. He called it his Bo Diddley guitar. There is a lot more story behind it. He told me it has the original strings on it from around 1980. I told him it's time for a string change. We had a chuckle about that.

I have the first Marvbird. it’s an AA code

Yes indeed, I have the first production model. Ian Beestin, a drummer friend of mine, goes way back with Cliff Brown - I think they were at school together. It was through Ian I got to know Cliff, when he was still at Blackstar and just about to set up 633. Ian was always saying that I should try one of his amps, so when I was able to try the Drive King prototype at a music shop demo I was convinced! Here's a pic from April 2016 when I went down to Cliff's place to pick up the amp. I brought along my 1x12 cab, the Heritage H150 VSB and Paulman Tele to try it out.

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.

Thanks I got a new preamp in the house, a Sebatron VMP2000VU, I use the 4 channel version of this in my studio, although my studio one doesn't have the VU meters. I don't think there's better multi-use tube preamp for home and project studio use. I love it on everything. All the drums you heard from my studio were through the Sebatron. And it sounds great on bass and guitars too. I recorded a cleaner and slightly longer version of this song with my Jaguar through the same mics and pre...

In the long run, the money difference doesn't matter when you find the right guitar. It saves time and anxiety plus increases goodwill just to pay a little more. You won't find another one just like that for a very long time.

I was joking yeah I paid asking price, was able to negotiate an extra $20 for a pedal I traded in though (woo for the small victories). I totally botched any haggling when I enthusiastically said I’ll buy it immediately after playing it. Anywho, I know all anyone cares about at this time is a picture so I’ll oblige. Lighting isn’t great, the blue isn’t as dark as it seems.

My $0.02- that is 100% a reflection of the tremolo arm. you can see more of of the reflection under the strings inside the bigsby itself. There's also how unlikely a crack shaped like that with such a clean appearance would ever occur on a semi-hollow body made from a laminate body with a solid centerblock. Would usually cracks along the grain.

Finally found a picture of mine.

Aside.. Legendary Ted McCarty left Gibson to work for.. Bigsby.

Well, considering there are not a lot of manufacturing differences for Heritage between the standard line and the custom core line, and considering they are pricing the custom core line anywhere from 1/2 to 1/3 more than the standards,... then I would say Heritage's profit margin is MUCH higher with the custom core line. And thus, fewer custom core guitars need to be sold to keep a higher profit over the standard line. Also, I think the custom core line has been a HUGE success. Of all the Heritage guitar owners groups forums (obviously here at HOC and on Facebook), the number of owners reporting a new custom core Heritage purchase BY FAR out weighs the number of new standard line Heritage purchases. For me, the lighter weight on my Custom Core 150 has justified it's price. Last night, I played the Aged CC 150 comparing it to my Murphy Ultra Lite aged R9. Other than the different frets on the CC 150, I am not so sure the CC 150 is not a better guitar.... again, validating the price of the custom core line.

Cause you can sell buttered bread for more that the ingredients alone. Take coffee: A bag of beans is $6 for 10 ounces. Add hot waters and you can sell it for $5 for 12 ounces of mostly water. If you can make 30 cups out of 10 oz of beans that's $150 from a $6 investment.

I believe Ken made 3 versions, the large majority being Floating #3. Ken Armstrong would rebuild these to a higher output for about $100. I have what's probably a unique one rebuilt as a single coil by one of the current Heritage team. People bad mouthed the Floating #3 a lot. I firmly believe much of the criticism came from the urge to guild the lilly. The #3 is an excellent low output humbucker. It is very clean, almost acoustic sounding.

This is a photo taken for a story by a local paper in 2013. It just so happens that Marv was working on a couple of 357s. The one on the bench is mine and the one Marv is holding is Bolero's. I know mine is the one on the bench as it was running a few weeks behind waiting on my custom fret board, "From them boys down in Tennessee". Marv sent me several in process shots of the build, but it's nice to have an action shot of the build. https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2013/02/love_where_you_live_photos_by.html

Actually, the post was made by Taylor Lawrence, who is Marv's grandaughter.

I talked to Marv last night. He sounds good and said he is feeling well. He told me he will be turning 86 this year. He is enjoying life and his offspring that is getting extensive. We were talking about H-357s and the one he is holding. That is one of the Korina models he did. Came from California. He brought up Ron Warren and he hadn't heard he passed. He loved the picture Ron did for him.

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

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.

Beautiful H-150! Enjoy!

A few days ago I replaced the single coil Nocaster Cavalier Holy Grail pickup in the partscaster Esquire that I built with a Seymour Duncan Billy Gibbons BG-1400. I love having a great sounding single coil sized humbucker in it, especially because it's humbucker quiet! The Nocaster Holy Grail was great sounding too, but I hated dealing with the single coil noise when recording by my computer monitor. And just last night I replaced the 5-way switch in my PRS Custom 22. I never liked that switch, as I never knew what position I was in. And grasping the 5-way switch with sweating hands while under the stage lights was a pain! Fortunately there's a company "Free-Way" that makes a great 6-way toggle switch that is fairly straight forward to install. I used model Number 3X3-08 Here's the guitar with the Free-Way switch installed... The switch has 2 banks of pickup selections. There's a left and right side of three postions each... Left Side position 1: neck pickup (coils in parallel) position 2: neck and bridge in phase (coils in parallel) position 3: bridge pickup (coils in parallel) Right Side position 1: neck and bridge (in series) position 2: neck and middle (in series) Out Of Phase position 3: neck and middle (in parallel) Out Of Phase So here's a demo of the Esquire as the rhythm guitar, and my PRS with me switching through the switch positions starting with position 1. I'm also playing bass, snapping my fingers, and I mic'd the floor so you can hear me tapping to the beat:)

It’s listed as “tr blue” on the label. That’s a super nice guitar I bet it sounds great too!

Congrats on the new guitar. I'm glad that it wasn't any kind of scratch or crack. A slight nick or ding isn't a structural issue. The fact that it plays and sounds good is the real issue. There really isn't any other reason to have a guitar unless you want wall art! Enjoy!

Congratulations on your new guitar purchase, it's a beauty. A great deal is when the buyer and seller agree on a price. I would not have walked away from that guitar purchase over a few dollars, enjoy.

Congrats!! that is a really nice 555!

@Teaky...Congratulations on your beautiful H555!!!

I took it that they settled on the original asking price of $2700. Art of the deal!

Went to check it out today and sure enough it was just the reflection overall it was in great shape albeit with some scratches and dings and most importantly it sounded great! Plays great too! I offered $2,500 and he countered with $3,000 so I said sold!

Frankly, it kept me from playing that guitar!

I've seen in a couple of places that Heritage has reduced the price on Standard line models. Might be time to jump on something!

Wait until you guys see my AI/robot guitar factory. It's going to put everyone else out of business!

I am happy they are selling robustly! And I am glad you are enjoying yours as well. I just hope Heritage keeps manufacturing their standard line as I believe there is a market, they are great guitars in their own right. If I could afford a CC I would buy one. But being retired and on a fixed income has its limitations

Thanks for the hundreds of suggestions peeps, ya'll are awesome, which is why I am on here so much! 🤷‍♀️

Ken Rambo made the first floaters Heritage used. There were 2 or 3 different pickups designated by stickers on the bottom. Heritage floating pickups are now made in house and they are Fab.

I reached out to Ren. He said they never were used as floaters.

Jim is still in the shop sometimes too!

Well it looks great. I know that building guitars can stir up the dust, but when I looked at pictures of the old shop before the new guard came in, it just looked gloomy and a safety nightmare. And it seems to me that the quality of the new guitars coming out of Heritage has improved. I have played quite a few of the new Heritages, and I've been impressed with all but one of them (a H530 that just wouldn't intonate and the aging was way over the top).The rest of the new ones that I've played had properly cut nuts and nice fretwork, whereas all of my "golden years" needed work in those areas. And I liked that the few H150s that I played were reasonable weight, surely not boat anchors. I'm sure Heritage lost a lot of their archtop building expertise, with the retirement of Marv and Ren, but hopefully, Pete can train some of the new guys and they can rebuild their archtop line.

The paint booth is a huge improvement over the old setup on the third floor. The air is filtered in so that there's no dust to settle on a wet finish. Guitars are hung to dry, and the safety is a big factor as the solvent vapors are kept to a minimum in the room. There is a lot less wood dust in the shop itself. They invested a good deal of money in the dust collector system. Wood dust can be a dangerous fire and explosion hazard.

Man, that Eagle that Rich plays the song on at the end of the video sounded unreal. Makes me want to learn a song in that style. It has just the right balance of string to wood in the tone WOW!

That’s Bill.

What I know about Jazz guitar playing could fit on the head of a needle, but I love watching those Rich Severson videos. He does great demos, and gets some great tones out of those jazz boxes!

Yes he made a pair.

Marv's granddaughter posted this on Facebook. Rare Bird Sighting! A few weeks ago, I posted looking for leads on a MarvBird—a special guitar made by luthier Marvin Lamb, who also happens to be my grandfather. My husband became obsessed with the hunt and started digging everywhere. And thanks to one of YOU, we were blessed with the opportunity to bring one home to the family! Thank you for all the love you continue to show for Marvin’s craft and legacy—it means the world to us.

Why would anyone pay $1000+ shipping for a guitar that you can buy from Manny's for $699? I certainly wouldn't buy a guitar from Malaysia when you have a US company doing the imports, with free shipping and a 30 day return guarantee. https://deals.bandlab.com/mannys https://deals.bandlab.com/mannys/products/heritage-guitars/8367752773785