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I will preference this buy saying that I have owned over 20 Heritage guitars and that is more than most on this forum. I only bought one Heritage that was made after 2017 (my 2022 150 Custom Core), the rest were bought before 2017 and earlier. You are getting a lot of good advice here and most is accurate, especially about the specs of older vs new Heritage guitars. BUT if you excluding Heritage guitars made before 2017 based on internet folklore that the new guitar are ALWAY ALL better, than that is a huge mistake. Most internet post on other sites are from those who haven't played older ones or haven't played newer ones to compare. My 2022 Heritage 150 Custom Core had some issues with the tuneamatic posts and stoptail studs drilled at about a 20% off angle from straight perpendicular and the bottom strap button hole drilled about a half inch off center seam. The issues were corrected (except for the bottom strap button placement) with Faber locking hardware. The guitar plays and sound amazing. BUT my point is, that I never had any issues even close to those with the handmade older Heritages Pre-2017. Obviously like any guitar company there will be the occasional rare, lemon produced. My older Heritages were as close to mint-perfect from the factory as any other guitars produced from other companies. The ONLY issue that occasional happened back in the day from the Heritage factory was less than perfect cut nuts ( Heritage intentionally cut the nut high so you could lower it yourself if you wanted to) and even less often was the frets might need buffed. I NEVER had either of these issues on any of my pre-2017 Heritages, but the luthier cost to have these issues fixed is $50-100 and now you have a handmade guitar costing thousands of dollars less than what other companies would have charged. My point is, ANY guitar from ANY company should be judged on a guitar by guitar bases. To dismiss all Heritage guitars made by the the original owners (pre-2017) would be a huge mistake and any misinformation claimed that the newer guitars are ALWAYS better.... well, ask them how many older Heritages verse new Heritages they have owned. Good luck with your purchase!!!

Well, having only owned 5 pre-2017 Heritage guitars, my thoughts are likely only worth about 25% of what Kuz has said. Mine were built in 1996, 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2008. None of my 5 had any significant issues whatsoever. Yes, the oldest one (1996 H535) has a somewhat slimmer neck than the others, but that was how things were done back then. And so what? With the arthritis in my left hand, neck scale length is now far more important to me than thickness. That's why I now have a 24" Ron Kirn Jaguar and my recent Doug Harrison custom build is 24.6". John's absolutely correct: listening to dumbass internet 'experts' about Heritage quality from the old days is a waste of your time.

The first two guitars I got, back in my teens, were a Firebird V and then a ES-345. It is likely the Firebird had a fat neck and the 345 a thin one, based on specs I can see these days. I never noticed back then. At 18, I got a late 1920's L-5. That neck was very fat. I noticed that but adjusted. Nowadays I like a medium thin neck best but still have some "59" carved necks on several instruments which I can play equally poorly! The L-5 I got was from a studio musician who played for Chess Records for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Records This guy good easily go from that fat neck to my much thinner Howard Roberts without missing a beat- literally. It can be difficult to predict how a neck will feel. There are some with small hands or arthritis who may be handicapped with a fat neck. But they couldn't be as limited as this guy, who managed to do quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ308aOOX04 I understand that guitars mean different things to different people. Many are very finicky, and I get that. Yet I reflect on working with traveling musicians, going state to state. Many, probably most, pianists did not bring their own pianos. Those who did said it was for the tone, not the feel of the keyboard. I played a few woodwinds a decade. I don't recall anyone complaining about the "action". Quite a few virtuoso guitarists can switch from a 24 3/4th" scale to a 25.5", some in the same show. Jimmy Page went back and forth between a double neck and a single neck guitar in the same shows. Most of us spend a good amount of time driving. I'll bet very few swapped out their driver's seats because they were too narrow, fat, stiff or soft. Most things in life we are okay with even if they are not ideal because they simply are a means to an end and they work. It seems to me that often some find that the precise comfort of the guitar is an end or at least one of the ends. I know that we are fussy about guitars. We have hundreds of different types of picks, strings, pickups, amps, pedals, and so much more. There is a risk that the pursuit of perfection spoils the journey. I don't want to be snide to the effetes, but here's some practical advice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0x978oZa3Y&t=39s

They were winding some gold foil pickups when we were there in August. He was also playing with P90s. There were lots of different magnets that they could use to test different configurations. The problem is that there are a lot of variations in "gold foil" pickups. Single coil, double coils, with or without screw pole pieces and different magnets. Under that little piece of gold plastic covering, there's not a typical style like there is with a PAF or Strat or Tele pickup. GFS, Mojotone and Lollar all make different styles. With the 4 screws on the base plate, I'm thinking these might be a dual coil/humbucker style rather than a single coil. To know for sure, you would probably need to disassemble one, or visit the factory and look at the parts.