Leaderboard

Arrived in good shape. All is well. A 1991 at 5# 8 oz. The Kent Armstrong pickup seems hotter and fuller than the more acoustic sounding Floating #3. Nothing to not like.

I just bought at special Heritage Johnny Smith Rose. Was made for Jay Wolfe as his personal guitar and has rose inlay on pickguard. This guitar is warm and resonate for sure a beauty. This my 3rd carved top Heritage I have another Sunburst Johnny Smith and a Ghost build D'angelico New Yorker. These guitars stack up with the best or sure. A real American Treasure they are way underappreciated and valued.

The first place you'll find penny-pinching is in the electronics. That will level-set for you the rest of the build quality. Everything in that photo was bottom of the line, even in China. One of the biggest cost adders in guitars is wood. And yes, China and Indonesian manufacturers can buy wood from all the same places American companies can, even from the USA. Letting wood sit and cure and stabilize for long periods of time, ties up lots of money, for a long time, which greatly increases the cost of the wood. You either pay interest on that inventory, or you have opportunity cost. But aging wood under temperature and humidity controls for a long time (months or years), increases its quality and stability, which in turn produces better instruments. If you're churning out bottom dollar guitars, you're darn sure not going to let wood sit any longer than the absolute minimum to get it to the sawmill. I've been to the Martin factory, most of the videos of the factory tours gloss over the wood warehouse and the rough-sawing operation. They have an enormous amount of valuable wood, carefully stacked and stored, in a huge, temperature and humidity controlled warehouse. The raw wood ages for a long time before it is sawn and made into instruments. That's an enormous pile of money, just sitting there. Most cheaper guitars are not only made of less expensive species and lower grades of wood, the lumber hasn't aged for long. CNC machines today can churn out identical copies of stuff at mass scale, and there's lots of those in China. But wood is not like metal or plastic, it is organic and it moves with age, temperature and humidity. It might have been perfectly shaped out of the CNC line, but will it be by the time it gets built? You'll also never see nitro finishes on cheap guitars, because that too, takes time. It can take weeks to complete a nitro finish, where as poly can be done in as little as a few hours. The electronics are tip of the iceberg indicators of what you have.

I don't think there would be a HOC if Heritage began the way they are now. They started with a group of skilled artisans flipping of the establishment and hand building in the day when machines were replacing humans and the American worker was devalued. It was easy to rally around them. And the Heritage owners were interesting characters with personality. You could order a guitar with a certain neck carve, different harware, and lots of finishes at a pretty reasonable price. They definitely were the underdogs. Now, they are more precise in their builds, more parsimonius in their offerings, and less personal. There is good with their progress and efficiencies, but they are no longer the underdogs fighting the system and making a variety of customizations at a low price. I recall that buyers sometimes were there when Marv carved necks. He would hand the neck of for inspection and the buyer may say something like make it a little flatter. I am a Heritage fan, but it's more corporate. There's no getting around it. I know there's a Gibson forum, but it's about the instruments, not the builders and the facility. I have a friend who designs Heritages. He's a great luthier and very smart. Heritage is lucky to have him. What I'll miss are things like Heritage closing for deer season opening day, dropping by and walking through the factory, and the little soap operas that somehow escape the plant. All the quirkiness and dramas that gave Heritage flavor will eventually be smoothed out.

Pure art 😍

I was one of those people. One morning Marv called me and asked if I would like to try the neck on the first Millie they were building for me (at the time I thought it would be the only Millie they would build for me, ha). I live 200 miles from the Heritage factory and I'm not sure Marv knew that. Sooo I finished breakfast and off I went. What a thrill to talk with Marv about the carve of the neck!

Not that my opinion matters; but wish they would have at least put “Heritage Ascent” on the headstock, or something more than just an extra trc screw to differentiate it. They could have launched a cheaper variant of the brand, without cheapening the brand.

The back of the guitar is looking at me funny Seriously though, awesome Heritage man!!!

@MartyGrass...Awesome!!!

This guitar plays wunderful smooth easy neck. I repair guitars and use to work with the late Bill Hollenbeck of the blue guitars builder and was around Bill Barker. The set up is perfect I did not need to do a thing. The sound reminds me of my 1971 Barker guitar and that is a surprise Barker my is a great guitar.

Boom, there it is!!! Well, stated Mark... actually, perfectly stated.

Actually, I think it just runs down the brand. Nothing wrong with buying a budget guitar made overseas. But some things should be true to the name, and I can't think of a brand that actually means true, than "The Heritage",.

I took a chance on one just out of curiosity. Not bad. Even has a belly cut. Obviously cheap hardware but I have to say it sounds pretty good. Set up was good. Intonation good. We'll see how long the parts hold up.