Leaderboard

2001 Sweet 16 photos courtesy of Wolfe Guitars

I know that guitar!

Super duper score! The 16 is a great guitar. Beautiful specimen.

That's something you might want to talk about with Mike at Heritage. They have a process, and it probably depends on how much of an upcharge it would require. Under the CC portion of the website they mention their "bespoke" program. I don't know where you live, but if there is a dealer anywhere close, you should check out the current line. I didn't feel like the necks on the Standard II guitars were toothpicks! The couple I picked up were comfortable. I've felt much thinner necks. The 530 I bought in '25 is the original Standard line, but the neck isn't really any thicker than my 2005 535. I hear all these comments about thin and thick necks, but for me, shape is FAR FAR more important than how thick it is. My 2014 Vintage '54 Strat has a baseball bat for a neck, but it's comfortable. My 74 Guild S100 is much thinner but I've played that for years! I've tried several PRS necks that were thin and were painful to play. I can pick up a guitar and can tell within 10 or 15 seconds if it's right or wrong for me. And if cost were no object, I would just fly up to Kalamazoo on a private jet and visit the factory.... or else drive my Ferrari up there. Unfortunately, someone else won the $700+ million Powerball, so there's no private jet or Ferrari in my future!

Fab 16

What a beauty!!

Probably my favorite guitar to play live. Of all my H guitars it has the best neck/nut width combination for me. Just feels right in my hands. Sounds great through just about any amp and super versatile. Straight ahead jazz KB tone, getting jazz-rock/funky, it really can do it all. Rarely feeds back even at volume/loud drummer/horns. Looks good too! Anybody else have a crush on your 550? I love my other Heritage and other guitars too, but for playing in a band that does a lot of different things, this one gets the call most often. Indoors, outdoors, even in the studio I’d put it up against just about anything for tone and feel. Link to a recording: https://on.soundcloud.com/6SVD2MkCr2E14HyaEE

I hadn't noticed that on the site. Thanks for the heads up!

I have both and they're equally good. The standard one is in osb finish with factory Seth Lover pickups and it is an absolute killer instrument. I would just play them first.....with my eyes closed 🫣

If I were in your shoes, looking for a specific neck carve, I'd make the request through one of the larger, high volume dealers (i.e. Dave's Guitar Shop, Wolfe Guitars, etc.). They might be able to order a 'special run' of '59 neck profile' H530's, or see if they have one at the factory. Heritage dealers have much more sway than a single customer seeking something unique. Good luck!

That is one beautiful guitar, congratulations and enjoy.

Yeah, I have to say, Throbak has been great to deal with. Expensive, but they are the real deal. I put a used set of DT-102 MXV humbuckers in my Gibson R0. They had been special ordered like 20 years ago, by a well-known guitar tech with an unusual selection of magnets. I contacted Throbak and decided to purchase the normally specified magnets. They weren't cheap, but I can attest to the fact that their magnets are indeed, the real deal. Super happy with how they treated me in the process. I'd definitely do business with them again. I've heard/played their 63 Strat set and without even knowing what they were, I was floored by how good they sounded too.

Beautiful, congrats!

That's a beauty.

I could get seasick looking at all the waves in that maple! Beautiful guitar, congrats!

Beautiful!

@tsp17...Wow, congratulations on that gorgeous 'sweetie'!! Play it in good health, my friend.

For the record I did not pay that reverb asking price in the screenshot photo. Did not mean to display that in the post. Admin - can you delete it? Bought directly from Wolfe with some negotiation to get to a number I could afford and was also fair to them. always good to work with the team at Wolfe. But…it was still a good chunk of change so something now needs to be sold….stay tuned.

I've been drooling over that one for a while. Congratulations!

Dazzling. Congratulations!

Those two did not work. However I have it on good authority that if I could find a Conrad Bison electric I would be as a 12 year old again.

I've never had a problem with Throbak customer service, and I've never heard of Peter Flynn till today!

The wood for the two are "different", at least for the 150s. Custom Core use selected light weight mahogany pieces. The Standard line use the heavier pieces, but now do weight relief. Some people will claim that doing weight relief does bad things, but that hasn't been my experience. The Millenniums are similar in shape and spec as the 150s, but are hollowed out. My Mille LE is as good as my 157 with a heavy dense chunk of wood. Same bridge and tailpiece, same strings. Not necessarily sounding exactly the same with different pickups, but if I crank up the distortion, who can tell what the guitar sounds like. It's like trying to judge the better tasting piece of steak after you douse it in salt, pepper, and cover it in a bottle of A1 sauce! Some people will claim that the denser wood is better, others will say that lighter wood is more resonant. Whatever... If you believe it, it's true! It's on the internet so its a fact. Oh yeah, the earth is really flat. I read that on the internet too! When you're talking about the 535 and 530, it's a laminate anyway. There should be minimal difference, except for the figuring of the top laminate. I don't know how much of a premium that should command. I don't know the differences in the bridge/tailpiece. There's a difference in neck profile, but that shouldn't be a cost difference. I don't know if they choose different grades of wood. Do they use the better quartersawn for the CC neck? The best quartersawn wood should be more stable due to the orientation of the grain. As the grain goes more towards flatsawn, it can flex more. Pete did say that the finish isn't the same between the two series. The final polishing of the CC line is slightly duller than the Standard lines. It should feel a bit slicker, since the smoother something is, the more you can have some "stiction". It sounds counter intuitive, we had a similar situation in the printing industry. A chrome surface that was too smooth would literally destroy itself in a few hours. If it was above a certain roughness, it would last weeks. I know some people like the fake aging, but for me, if I had a choice between a pristine Standard II and an aged CC at the same price, I would take the Std II. Fake finish checking and fake corrosion isn't for me. I like the inlay work on the CC line. For me, the block inlays on the 535, 555 and 530 CC guitars are a definite advantage. Dots are ok, and I live with them on my guitars, but I bought the 157 for the blocks, extra binding and gold hardware. For a while, I was watching for a red 555, just to get the same vs my 535. Since they are making the pickups, I don't know what premium one would have over the other. Whether it has 5000 turns, or 4750 turns, Alnico II vs III vs V, rough or smooth magnet. I don't know that it makes a tremendous cost difference. It would be a lot less that the difference between nickel and gold plating, especially at the price of gold today! The case of the CC line is definitely nicer than what comes with the standard line. I even mentioned to Mike that the new case that came with my 530 wasn't as nice as my old TKLs that came with my 157, 535, or 140. It's OK, functional, but it binds a bit when I close it. It's not lined up as well. Once snapped down, it's fine. Something I think should be on the CC line would be stainless steel frets. I don't know how much of an issue that would cause with the Plek, but you're already paying a hefty premium. That is an upgrade that I think would be very worthwhile, especially for a guitar that gets a lot of use.

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.

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

I like looking at your pretty guitars. The implied lesson here is don't buy some gorilla glue and do it yourself. But finding an excellent repair guy in Kalamazoo is considerably easier than many other cities. You are one lucky guy!

After the repair.