Heritage Eagle Artisan Aged, Buttery!

[Ric Lee]

This guitar is quite simply what I've been looking for for a very,very long time. L5's have been out of my price range for quite awhile. I could buy one for what they were selling 5-6 years but didn't have the scratch back then.

I've had quite a few Eastmans (the 605 and 610 are great acoustic style floater archtops). Many Ibanezes (the Ibanez GB10 is my favorite out of all of those). I've always tried to get a slimmer and smaller bodied guitar to give me a big fat sound. Laminates have their own beautiful sound of course but always wanted to get some clarity and thumb related tones like Wes and this does that better than anything else I've ever owned.

I came to jazz guitar like many through the door of Wes Montgomery and then bumped into Ed Bickert and Ted Greene hanging out in the lobby and now all three make up my trinity of jazz guitar stalwarts. I of course love many like Joe Pass and Tal Farlow always makes me smile.


My understanding is that these Eagle Classics are more heavily built and while still being all carved but this guitar and excels at plugged in electric sound and doesn't feel heavy in any appreciable sense not really given its large dimensions. A heavy tele or les paul has more focused heft and feels more dense.

While I loved my Heritage Sweet 16 as the neck was absolute perfection, and the Sweet 16 had the best neck geometry and playability I've ever experienced with a perfect 60's slim that fits so well in the palm and the action that was criminally low. I briefly toyed with putting a built in mounted humbucker like Wes did back in the day into the Sweet 16 but that felt like sacrilege and I could always find another single mounted humbucker model down the line, I think it would also still have more feedback susceptibility given its lighter build.

I went ahead and traded that in in order to get this one. That Sweet 16 was so much more acoustically oriented with a floater and I'm assuming thinner carved top that it fed back without much effort in anything without a modeled sound and even a Henriksen Bud 6 could get it going.


The relicing of archtops isn't really my preference as I feel you don't see that as often in the wild. A heavily reliced telecaster can look like a normal heavily played nitro telecaster you could find. But I feel an archtop subjected to the treatment that would create a relic of this level I feel would often have issues from that treatment.

The relicing job I will say is pretty stellar, I'm not a connoisseur of relic'd guitars myself so that's an outsider assessment. I like the neck relicing the most and I could do without the black dye I feel was used to be placed into the cracks. I may have someone take a look into how to clean that black dye out but I feel that's a fools errands and probably best left alone.

Please excuse the amateur photos; I'm setting aside some time to immerse myself in playing. I have to say, the moment I began weaving through my half-baked Wes Montgomery's licks and octaves, especially some favorite melodies he played while backed by orchestral arrangements I was overcome with emotion and I couldn't help but tear up a little bit, feeling as if I'd finally arrived at a place I've been longing for, wrapped in a sound that has been a part of my journey for almost two decades.

Pics:

[Hammertone]

... My understanding is that these Eagle Classics are more heavily built and while still being all carved but this guitar and excels at plugged in electric sound and doesn't feel heavy in any appreciable sense not really given its large dimensions. ...

Congrats on finally landing on the guitar with the sound you love. A fully carved, deep-bodied (3"), 17" CES-style archtop with a 25 1/2" scale, IIRC. Not a surprise.
OK, how much does it weigh? Inquiring minds need to know.

[Ric Lee]

Congrats on finally landing on the guitar with the sound you love. A fully carved, deep-bodied (3"), 17" CES-style archtop with a 25 1/2" scale, IIRC. Not a surprise.
OK, how much does it weigh? Inquiring minds need to know.

Exactly. I could have just put a similarly equipped Golden Eagle on financing 10 years ago and saved myself a ton of money.

I also went ahead and weighed it but ONLY because the threads of eloquence and cloak of wit so intricately woven by Hammertone throughout the ages dutifully exemplifying the very essence of articulation in his lexiconic robes of unmatched grandiloquence compelled me too!

--------8.4 lbs on my bathroom scale.

I'd blanch at that weight in a telecaster but it sits just right without issue and sounds *chef's kiss* .

[voxo]

great story Ric...

[58flame]

I have one also and it is a fantastic instrument in all respects. Congrats.

[Ric Lee]

I will say this is my first carved top instrument at 17 inches that is designed for electric tone. It didn’t really feel heavy to me, but I had heard that it was built more for the electric side of things.

[Oscar67]

What a beauty! As a rule of thumb I don’t like relic’d guitars but this looks nice. Congrats!

[EllenGtrGrl]

VERY nice! I've had a couple of Heritage guitars (a 535, and a 530), and they were both great guitars. I'd love to get one of their 17" archtops - if I could afford one. I wonder, does Heritage have the chunkier neck option for the archtops, like they have (or had) for the 530, and 535?, that's neck profile I prefer over the slim taper profile.

[Ric Lee]

VERY nice! I've had a couple of Heritage guitars (a 535, and a 530), and they were both great guitars. I'd love to get one of their 17" archtops - if I could afford one. I wonder, does Heritage have the chunkier neck option for the archtops, like they have (or had) for the 530, and 535?, that's neck profile I prefer over the slim taper profile.

This Eagle classic has a bit more heft than the 60’s slim of the 97’ Sweet 16 I had (I prefer that slim). I understand that slim was a popular option requested on the Heritages of old. This Eagle neck isn’t beefy though just a bit more shoulder and back.

I have played a 96’ Golden Eagle that was a chunkier neck. There was so much custom I understand in pre-BandLab owned Heritage and the current Eagle neck I’d say is between that older hefty Golden Eagle neck I played and the 60’s slim Sweet 16. Still comfortable enough for me.

I believe you can do orders through Heritage though not sure how customizable and the added cost. They seem to be doing well enough they have wait times.

[2bornot2bop]

That’s funny because an identical, non relic’d, late model Eagle Classic, with the same burst, was for sale on Reverb for $3200, and it sat for months before finally finding a buyer.

[Ric Lee]

That’s funny because an identical, non relic’d, late model Eagle Classic, with the same burst, was for sale on Reverb for $3200, and it sat for months before finally finding a buyer.

I would’ve been all over that, but this one worked out one because I don’t have to pay tax on the trade value I used.

And with a toddler in the house it being pre-relic’d helps me relax a little little bit!

[jim232777]

Beautiful, Ric! My flat-top is a 1988 model from Heritage. It was a pretty basic model, but even so I can go into a music store, strum a Martin, and think "big deal?" So based on the nice sound of mine, I can only imagine the quality of one of their higher end guitars. Play it in good health!

[jumpnblues]

I have one also and it is a fantastic instrument in all respects. Congrats.

Same here. I love mine. The (non-reliced) Heritage Eagle Classic Standard and a newly acquired ES 345 are the best electric guitars I've owned in the last 60+ years. They will both be used for jazz.

I also picked up a new custom shop '64 lightly reliced Tele in fiesta red that I really like. It sounds pretty darn good for jazz too. I only have 3 electric guitars. But it's a formidable collection. Fortunately, I was able to make trade, no cash, deals. Otherwise, I would never have been able to afford the deals I made. I'm very blessed.

Only hitch is I had to trade a Gibson Dave Harvey signed F5G mandolin and a custom Bourgeois Brazilian (D-28 based) dread. I still have a top notch (D-18 based) Pre-War Guitars D1 dread for the bluegrass I play.