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Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
I'd love to see some examples of more unusual Heritage custom orders - most of the ones posted around here seem pretty straightforward to me. My understanding is that Heritage charged/charges extra $$$ for these simple requests. Seems like a win.
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02-27-2018 02:56 AM
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I've been researching the Eagle a bit recently. The dimensions suit. And this sounds pretty ok to me, too.
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Or these, they sound great to me. L5 without the syrup?
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i love heritage and the eagle I had beat out my Gibson Wesmo but I was a bit disappointed that they don't have the capability to make a 4" thick archtop like an L5 or 175. Additionally, I was inquiring with them about them making a plywood version of the 575 and their response was that they didn't see the point since the 575 was a superior instrument.
I thought that a bit odd.
Having said that, I will say that the used heritage guitars I've bought in the last 10 years have been better guitars than the used and new Gibsons I have played.
Of course, Henry at gibson is now blaming guitar center for his woes so it's not surprising...
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Hmm? Played Gibson archtops nearly all of my life. Great guitars. Been playing Heritages since about 1992. Also great guitars.
The Super Eagle I own has been owned by several forum members. Patrick called it "Lady Rose." Exceptional archtop.
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
There are a ton of mods on that guitar, beginning with Patrick supplying the lumber for the body. The carving of the top and the back was done by Marv Lamb because of his way of tuning. The pickup, the circuit, the tailpiece, and the bridge were all supplied by Patrick. In fact Patrick delivered the strings. Pete Moreno installed the pickup. Patrick was there when the neck was rolled to supervise. Lastly, Marv also shot the finish.
Every detail, including feuds over charges, was managed by Patrick.
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Originally Posted by Marty Grass
Last edited by Hammertone; 03-04-2018 at 10:21 PM.
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
Patrick had strongly held opinions, like some current members on the forum. He was vocal about them and had a temper. He sometimes fought with the Heritage factory owners like brothers. But...I've seen Patrick change his mind and be open to new information. For example, he hated the American Eagle, I mean hated it, until he picked one up for me and drove it to Kalamazoo about a month later. In that period of time he found it to be one of the finest guitars he's ever played and started to actually like the outrageous ornamentation. He cleaned it up, restrung it, set it up, and took a lot of pics with it.
Despite all of the ups and downs he had with the Heritage owners, they were very saddened at his demise. I called one of the owners the day Patrick passed. I told him that I had some bad news and that Patrick died. The owner seemed a bit upset and said he was a nice guy, too bad, etc. A moment later he realized it was not the Patrick who had worked at Heritage until recently but our Patrick. Then he was speechless and in shock. The owner contacted me later to express how depressed the other owners were. They sent something to Patrick's wife.
Patrick and I were planning on buying directly from the Heritage owners two Golden Eagles with mounted pickups that had some lacquer checking. One of the owners told Patrick that they were exceptionally good instruments. The price was ridiculous, something like $2700 each. Two days before we were going to pick them up Patrick died.
I enjoy telling these stories, but there is a point to them. Heritage was small enough to have a personal relationship with the guys building the guitars if you took the time to stop by. Any day you could walk into Heritage, go down the stairs, and chat with one or more of the owners or very senior luthiers. You could watch the factory in operation. It was small and informal.
Now it is very organized. Access to the production areas is restricted. It looks like a modern facility. Something has been lost and something gained.
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Patrick's guitars were made by the principal owners of Heritage. Those guys were semi-retired from day-to-day stuff when Patrick would request a special guitar. When they accepted an order, they had the time to dive into an unusual request...and Patrick's guitars (after his first, blonde Super Eagle) were unusual requests.
The results were pretty amazing. Patrick knew what he wanted, and Jim, Marv and the guys (Maude, too) knew how to realize Patrick's dreams.
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
If you've ever had a job in a manufacturing environment, you learn real early that ' our standard is our standard and custom is custom. '....And then you get to a point in the build process ( and your learning curve ) where you had better understand that you have all you can do to make a buck with your standard items, ( where you hopefully know your costs) vs custom things, where covering your costs is a wish and a guess......
When a company goes through a bankruptcy / change of ownership, once the new bean counters come in, a lot of times, they learn real fast these guys former owners didn't have a clue what their real costs were. ( Remember Chrysler Corp, and parts of GM as examples ). But going forward, they may finally get real accurate numbers for their product line, rather than answers like: " Well Johnny usually makes our necks but it's deer hunting season, so he wasn't here, so Virgil made these necks but painted the backs off center, so we had to re-do them etc etc etc "....
None of this is new, but I guess if you've never been a part of it, I guess it's harder to understand. And sometimes telling a customer ( or ' prospect /suspect' ) ' no ', is the smartest thing you can do.
I kept thinking of that after reading the Johnny Smith bio. Either they came to him, or he went to J.D'A , then Guild etc etc, and told them how he wanted his guitars built, in some cases down to the carves and assembly. Now we learned from that bio know he flew a plane.
Now how far do you think he'd have gotten telling any small aircraft manufacturer how to assemble the plane he wanted to buy ?
They'd have pretty much have thanked him for his business shown him the door.
Just my 2 cents.
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This is John Henry v. the steam drill, or Gibson goes to Nashville--all over again.
It sort of seems inevitable, but such changes are always going to cast management as heartless and tone deaf.
When textile mills switched to the Jacquard loom in the 19th century, loom workers no longer had to "design" fabrics. The design was built into the continuous loop of wooden Jacquard punch cards that fed the loom the design for the fabric. All workers had to do was make sure that the loom didn't run out of colored threads for the shuttles. Many workers were laid off because one worker could now attend several looms. Hand-crafted fabrics were out the window. Management looked glassy eyed at the workers and said, "buh-bye."
CNC to Heritage--"buh-bye" to workers and the old Gibson carving table.
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PS: Going to hang onto my hand-carved, imperfect Super Eagle, for sure.
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May I chime in ?
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Here's a Floyd Newton spray, like the Sweet 16 above he did. Floyd's finished thousands of guitars in his work for Gibson then Heritage.
Some may say they've seen as good elsewhere. I'd agree, but Floyd did these all day long for decades. He was highly consistent and reliable. Some might say they've seen better. We might have an honest disagreement then.
There are no paint blobs, smears, noticeable asymmetries or abrupt transitions. This is a classic Gibson triburst.
Floyd was one of these blue collar, humble workers who were the heart and soul of what was so great about vintage Gibsons.
I don't really have much of a point in this post, but I love the pics.
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My Heritage isn't one of the fancier models, but...man...antique sunburst.
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The burst (3 tone) on my Heritage Built D'Angelico II is superb:
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Here's my Antique Sunburst Golden Eagle. If I had to only have one guitar this would be the one.
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This is a very cool 3 "" deep Heritage h530 (similar to the 2nd generation Gibson 150. Except this one has a 25 1/2 inch scale and major upgraded wood. A very cool custom shop
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Originally Posted by Greentone
That’s Toty Violas old guitar, was mine for a bit too, I sold it back to Bob. When I met George Benson I told him I bought that and he said in his sorta raspy voice, “Man that’s a great guitar...”
Last edited by BigMikeinNJ; 03-03-2018 at 02:11 PM.
Rob MacKillop not feeling well.
Yesterday, 10:43 PM in Everything Else