MartyGrass

Chestnut burst is one of my favorites. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H530SCS--heritage-standard-h-530-limited-edition-electric-guitar-chestnut-sunburst Here is my H-575 in the same finish.

I would have had to drive to Taiwan to pick it up!

Looks like a Super Eagle. Look at the bridge base diameter and the distance between the f holes and the rim. Three pics are of GEs and the other is a SE. Hard to tell.

No. It's a different shop.

The guitar was ordered as a custom from Mandolin Brothers. It has two pickguards. One has the Floating #3 and the other has a Kent Armstrong. This is the fourth Heritage JS I own now. All are very different. One is rose natural 18" x 3", one is natural 18" x 3.25", and one is green 17" x 3". The bracing is the same. One has a KA rebuilt pickup, one has a 12 pole KA, two have the Floating #3.

Four wire pickups allow the toggle switch to take you from the standard output, single coil, and out of phase. This vintage sunburst example does this with two SD P- Rails. The advantage of these pickups is that when you split the coils, the open coil can be the hotter one, like a P-90. Standard humbuckers split weakly. Also, you can select the weaker coil, which gives more of a Fender single coil sound.

It's distinct. Here's the full top. I sold it after a few years and got it back. That seems to be a pattern I have.

I'm afraid Heritage was not consistent with their old H-157 pickguards. Here are four.

Mike is not left handed, so I highly doubt it.

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.

Two brothers own two stores. They are very easy to deal with. I called the Illinois store because most of the guitars are there.

Here's the shop. https://reverb.com/item/83100142-heritage-golden-eagle-archtop-electric-guitar-floating-pickup-hard-shell-case

The fastest way to get the info on the music store is to search for the American Eagle on Reverb.

I don't have much to say about this. A friend of mine bought another Heritage Johnny Smith, one that was Jay Wolfe's personal one I got years ago but traded to BigMike. As many may know, BigMike sold his 70 guitars to a music store in Chicago. Two Heritage JSs were part of the collection. My friend drove there and bought one but told me the other one sounded and played equally well but didn't have a rose on the pickguard. I called the store in Chicago and asked about the remaining HJS. I was able to make a purchase. Most of BigMike's instruments are not yet posted on Reverb. If you can buy an instrument now, you can save all the Reverb fees and negotiate a price. The trick is to know what they have that they haven't listed. I don't know what they are except a bunch of Gibsons. Here's the HJS hanging on the wall. It has a Heritage pickguard with Schatten volume and tone controls and a Kent Armstrong pickup. As best I can tell, that's how Heritage made it. We'll see.

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.

It's difficult to specify a favorite because there are so many elements to consider. For workmanship, it's the American Eagle. There was an extraordinary amount of hours put in to create one, and they used the finest materials. The acoustic and amplified sound is as good as it gets from the 17" custom carved archtop by Heritage. For elegance in a standard sized full archtop, it's the Johnny Smith. Golden Eagles are damned close. For big sound, the Super Kenny Burrell or Super Eagle. For great sound in a more comfortable archtop format, it's the Sweet 16. For the all around archtop workhorse, it's the H-575. For comfort with a great electric sound, it's the Millie. I like the Millie Eagle 2000. For great electric sound then comfort, it's the Roy Clark. This model has all the good of a 555 with more top territory to show off the wood. For a best buy it's the H-150. The H-137 is another if you want P-90s.

This one was Big Mike's. He got it from 2Bornot2Bop who got it from me. It arrived in excellent shape.

Great question. 1. Johnny didn't sign the 16! 2. 16 is shallower and narrower. 3. Johnny's got a 25" scale. 4. Both are X-braced and thin topped for acoustics. The standard HJS is 17" and 3" deep. Heritage made two 18". One is 3" deep and the other is 3.25" deep.

I had this one a decade ago. It went to a friend then years later to another friend. Now I get it back. It has a beautiful acoustic tone. Also, it is the only one I know of with a Venetian cutaway, which is elegant.

The best!!

Here's an American Eagle newly for sale. Mike Hale (BigMike from the forum) sold his entire guitar and amp collection due to health issues. This American Eagle once was mine. https://reverb.com/item/82963327-heritage-american-eagle-19-1994-natural Many years ago someone who made his first post on HOC was selling this. It seemed like the listing was written by someone who didn't understand electric guitars. I contacted him, and he told me the guitar belonged to his recently deceased father. The seller plays flattops and was in his early 20s. He didn't know much about the AE. He lived in NYC. Patrick was a HOC member who had strong opinions about a lot of things and was the Heritage sales rep for part of NY and NJ. He hated the design of the AE. However he was willing to check the guitar out for me. He met the kid in a restaurant and shared a meal. He then thoroughly check out the guitar, including testing the truss rod function and examining the bracing. He called me from the restuarant to tell me the guitar desperately needs cleaning but is otherwise like new. I told him to pay the guy the money I sent Patrick. It was a deal. Patrick delivered it to me a couple weeks later in one of his routine trips to the Heritage factory. But in the meantime we talked on the phone. The wood easily cleaned up and the setup was perfect. But the gold needed more work. After about a week that was done. By the next week he told me he had the guitar out on a stand in his office all this time and now he gets why the Heritage boys made this design. He actually liked it. He loved the quilted maple. I had it for about five years or so and traded it to RhoadsScholar. Eventually it got to BigMike. Now Patrick is dead (sudden death in his sleep) and Rhoads likewise is (COVID). BigMike loved the AE and encourage me to get one that was listed on eBay, which I did. Benedetto wrote a book on the archtop years ago. It is a masterwork. In it he described the AE as a truly great archtop and described it. This was the only Heritage to make his book. I had occasion to talk with Marv Lamb, Aaron Cowles, Maudie Moore and JP Moats about the model. There are two things that stood out. First, it took more time to build one of these to make a decent wage off of. And I'm talking about hours spent, not just materials. The bracing and the plate tuning was the best they could do. They used the best wood they could find and would save it for the next build. The second thing was that the Heritage team was serious about the model. They decided to make it when the shuttle exploded and America was demoralized. Earlier we had the Iranian hostage crisis then we had the huge recession. Yes, it is kitschy to most. Maudy told me that the guitar needed something on the pickguard. Marv wanted the Challenger shuttle, and Maudie made it happen. The Liberty Bell was made in Germany and cost Heritage $500 each. The case is a vault, is heavy, and is red, white and blue. I had the AE that is now listed hanging on my wall in front of my desk for a few years. Soon I was brainwashed and appreciated the style. It is 100% old school Gibson/Heritage. It was certainly not a great marketing idea, but at the beginning they planned on only 25 guitars anyway. This is Heritage's Citation. The only one I've seen that had this much work put into it is the Centurian. The one for sale is 19. Mine is 15. Check out the listing. Below is my guitar.

The Seth Lover is the gold standard to me, particularly with jazz. I'm in the minority, but I do like Schallers, too.

I'd say that if I had to pick a neck carve it would be a medium C. I like thinner ones as well. But a long time ago I didn't know anything about neck carves. I came into a late 1920s L-5 with a pickguard-attached McCarty pickup. I had no idea it was collectible. That neck was big and it was distinctly different than the Gibson slim carves I was used to. But the L-5 was then my only guitar. Within a month it felt normal. Now I have an assortment of guitars. I pulled out a Thornton that was specified when made to be a 1958 carve. It is fatter than any Heritage I recall handling and is like my old L-5. After a couple of hours it was comfortable. But then I'm not a virtuoso. I know that many artists are very particular. Some are not though. Here are some pics. This is about 7.5 lbs, some of that being the fat neck. But the weight is not an issue. I hope you can appreciate how round the neck is from these pics. I would never claim a fat neck makes the guitar sound better. The guy who had this guitar made had two models with the same neck. I don't know why he was that specific.

I got a great H-157 from Skydog52 years ago. It's around 9.5 lbs. That's comfortable and it is a joy to play.

Must have been one of those nickle cadmium battery explosions that airports ask about. (kidding!)