New to Hertiage & the Forum

[Edko11]

Hello, I just joined this forum after having a H-140 fall into my hands for $300. As a working musician of over 30 years, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I was not very familiar with Heritage when a guy approached me in the grocery store, and said I should take this guitar home and If I like it then give him the $300. I did, and it didn’t take long to realize I owed him money. The previous owner did a disasterous job of trying to refinish it and the grocery store guy did a fair job of making it presentable visually, structurally and from a playability standpoint it is in great shape. I believe it has stock Schaller pick ups, which arent that bad. I’ve used it at a few gigs now and am smitten with it. I have been almost exclusively a Strat player, so I was really enthusiastic about how comfortable and natural it felt to play this guitar. I would like have a new finish put on it and was wondering if Heritage Owners have any advice, anecdotes, horror stories, do’s & donts as I start the job of bringing this great guitar to life. I believe it is from 1992. 

[CJTopes]

Your text is blacked out. ( at least on my browser) Selected the text as was able to read. 

 The three dots at the heal are interesting.  Looks like someone had put a bolt on neck at one time. The hardware looks like original but I'm not sure the PUPs are stock. I dont recall seeing open coil Schallers as OEM. I wonder if thats a H140P (Poplar body)

If it plays well and you like it, sweet deal!  Always wanted a 140. 

 

[TalismanRich]

I'm with CJ on the 3 dots.  Maybe the neck was reset with both glue and screws, or someone tried to use a 3 bolt neck.   Surely there's a story there, although we may never know what it is.

As for the Schallers,   they could be stock.   My 87 H140 came with uncovered coils.   Check the back of the control cover to see if there are any special notations.  In any case, $300 is a steal for that guitar if its solid.   

 

As for the text showing up as black on black,   If you are doing a copy and paste from a text editor,  try pasting as plain text, otherwise the software will use the color attributes of your software and that can play havoc with the viewing if you use the alternate theme.   I use the grey background, so the text is white by standard.   Try flipping the "THEME" attribute at the bottom of the page to see what I'm talking about.   

 

 

[bolero]

that is bizarre, I wonder why they drilled & then filled ( dowels? ) the 3 holes. there appears to have been a plate mounted there as well

I can see 2 possibilities:

1. someone decided to reinforce the neck joint by installed screws & a plate. then at some point the work got undone

2. there was a bolt on neck installed, later switched back to the stock neck

ok, maybe:

3. the neck broke off in the middle of a gig....so the guitarist ran out to his car & grabbed some power tools, came back into the bar, tackled the bass player, stole the bolts + neck plate off his '70's Fender Jazz bass, then bolted the neck back on, with enough time to finish off the solo in the outro to "Freebird"

[bolero]

ps congrats on the H140!!

and just where is this mysterious grocery store, where strangers will approach & sell people gtrs??

[Edko11]

Lol! That’s too funny. I noticed them, but not knowing to much about Heritage a suppose I just assumed it was part of the design. The neck it super solid and it seems like its always been there. Im prettu intrigued now. The guy in the supermarket is a bit if an mysterious dude.  He buys and sells guitars out of the basement of a violin shop outside of Niagara Falls NY. (Where the supermarket is. :-)) He just kind of shows up at gigs (& supermarkets) with sometimes amazing pieces. Legend has it that (and oddly coincidental considering this is a heritage forum) that he used to dumster dive at the Kalamazoo factory pre Heritage, and ended up with a treasure trove of parts and peices that he uses to build his stuff. He was actually in Vintage Guitar mag article for one of his Moderne replicas. Any way. He stated that when he got it it was intact but the original owner attempted to refinish it and botched it badly. He did a quick,  not really awesome job of refinishing it and set it up. Now that you’s have pointed that out Im gonna try to find out more. I absolutely love how it plays and sounds even unplugged. 

[bolero]

well that is a pretty cool story, and a very cool guitar, in any case

-->did you get a case with it?