Leaderboard

The older Heritage guitars can be stunningly great instruments. You just got to play them and see, and do a thorough checkout, like any used instrument. Heritage were a lot like Gibson Kalamazoo. Sometimes they were insanely great - and every now and then, just insane. I was quoted earlier in the thread. I have owned two Heritage guitars, both bought used. A 1998 H150, that I bought just over 20 years ago. The second is a 2001 H535 that I bought about a year ago. The necks on both are very similar, and nearly identical to my Gibson Custom Shop 60th anniversary 1960-v2 Les Paul 'burst. The "v2 neck" was a real thing, transitional between the fairly chunky '59 neck, and the razor-thin neck of the 1960-v3 and later vintage Gibsons. It is a very comfortable neck. The H535 is natural blonde and I happened to see it hanging at a shop. It was *pristine* with all the original Schaller hardware and the HRW pickup option. I played it and it instantly had "the sound" of a great ES335/H535, acoustically and through the pickups. The story diverges a bit here. My 1998 H150 has been an incredibly great playing guitar. The 2001 H535, had a not very well done fretboard/fretwork. It was all original, with the nibs in place. The fretboard itself was simply not properly leveled, which would be a factory issue. That kinda explains it being so pristine after 20+ years, it just wasn't playing that great. Some heroic work went into leveling the frets, it was OK-ish when I got it. But eventually, I yanked all the frets off, properly leveled the rosewood, and refretted with slightly larger Dunlop 6100 wire. I also put on a CNC machined nylon nut, just like Gibson used back in the 50's and 60's. (it's better than bone, trust me!) It now plays absolutely incredibly well. I put Faber locking bridge and tail, and the Faber bushings in it. The bushings made a surprising tone improvement. It was good before, it just had even more of that great semi-hollow sound. I capped it off with the lightweight Gotoh tuners that are perfect fit for the Grover Rotomatics. The Rotos were in great cosmetic shape, still quite shiny, but the lubricant inside had gotten stiff. The Gotohs are both light, smooth and just wonderful. I've played it A/B with a Collings I35LC with ThroBak pickups (a very, very nice $8000 semi-hollow). The I35LC is *amazing*. But the now properly fretted H535 gives up nothing to it. No regrets. My H535 is a lifetime keeper.

Years ago, I saw Keith Richards and Ron Wood play together in Salt Lake City with the New Barbarians. They were both playing Mesa IIC amps and they sounded great. I was right up front so I could hear those amps really good!

I don't know if these gold foils are made in house but I tend to think they might be since there are no markings or labels attached (See pic) They sound great, clean and bell like with a lot of chime.

Allright: Shims measured: 0.147 thick 1.045 @ 1st fret = 0.898" 1.163 @ 12th fret = 1.016"

That Newport Spruce is an awesome guitar. I've played a few.

I don't know if it was the "wrong" neck, but it wasn't a normal 555 neck. Might have been a special request, might have been an "oops!! That's not right!" We'll never know. Actually, on the 555, I think the bigger headstock looks better. Not that the normal one looks bad, but I like the binding and slightly wider style. It looks CLASSY!

MIne is .88 at 1st and 1.03 at 12th. Bolero, the trick is to have a small piece of wood or plastic that is thicker than the strings, and fits between the and stringsfrets. Measure that, and subtract from the total. I have a small piece of wood that is 2.1mm. So I measure 24.40mm and get 22.30 which is 0.878 inches for the neck. For me, shape is as important, or more, than the total thickness.

With the strings on I get ( inches ) 0.962 at 1st fret 1.091 at 12th fret That includes the fret & the strings though. Was a hassle to get under the strings

In John I trust. Great reviews! I have played several CCs and loved them.