More guitar trading

[Marty Grass]

There is no El Dorado with guitars. (Here's a reference on the term. El Dorado - Wikipedia) Much of the joy is in hanging out with other guitarists and swapping stuff.

A friend of close to 20 years is doing an exchange now with me. I sent him a blonde Heritage ghost built Gretsch Synchromatic. This is essentially a Super Eagle. I had three of these. One I gave to my grandson, who is a disciplined player. One I'm keeping. Here is the one I traded. Flickr

I will be getting two Heritage H-555s. One I owned before and was custom made for Vince Lewis. The other one I haven't touched yet.

The Vince Lewis is very comfortable to play. I'm told the other one is also. I'll probably pull the pickups on the second.

Back when these earlier guitars were built, there were gems and some with issues. These two are gems.

I found the 335 form fits me well. That is what I played in my teens. The Heritages are slightly different, likely to avoid lawsuits from Gibson. The cutaway horns are shaped differently and the body depth is 1/8" shallower. There are those who think that shallower depth makes a significant difference in tone. Then again, there are flat earthers. I certainly haven't found anything inferior about the body. I am open to discussion about the pickups and hardware.

Note the difference between the neck heel. I prefer a shallow heal but understand the guitars are built one at a time. There are variences.

[Stringswinger]

Mark, at one point I owned a Heritage 535. It had a factory upgrade to Duncan 59's. I found the guitar comfortable and beautiful to look at (it had the Almond sunburst finish), but compared to a Gibson 335 that I owned at the time (which had 57 Classics), I found the Heritage to be overly bright compared to the Gibson. Perhaps the brightness was caused by the body depth? The Pickups? The Schaller bridge? Later, I owned a couple of the Guild Starfires (a 4 and a 5) both of which were made in the 90's in Westerly and had the Duncan made Guild pickups. Compared to the Gibson, the Guilds were somewhat muddy. The Gibson lasted the longest in my stable of guitars, but I eventually let it go as i was favoring Les Pauls and 175's and found the 335 to not be fully satisfying. A bit after that I wondered if I should have a semi-hollow and bought a Gibson 355 (from you), but after a few months of trying to like the 355, I parted with it.

You are right that there is no El Dorado guitar, but with enough trial and error, we find out what we like (and what we don't). May you enjoy those semi-hollow guitars for many years to come.

[andrew]

There is no El Dorado, except of course, the Gretsch El Dorado (as played by Freddie Green)

[Marty Grass]

The bridges and tailpieces seem overengineered. Those are easy to swap out. When I had the H-555 on the left (Vince Lewis's old guitar) I had no inspiration to swap out anything. The only reason I might have is restlessness. The Schallers seemed excellent when I had the guitar, and I'm someone who is restless!

[58flame]

I like the one you traded. I had the Japan version for 20 years. Mine had cat's eyes and no pickup.