You may have noticed me selling a couple of things here in the past few days, and here's the reason why. I'd been thinking about upgrading my Epiphone Dot for awhile and had started looking around for a good deal on a used ES-335. That prompted me to start considering Heritage's version of that guitar, the H-535--from everything I'd read, at least the equal of the Gibson in quality, and generally about 20 - 25% less expensive. I remembered that Tio Kimo here owns one of those and raves about it, so I asked his opinion on a couple that I'd come across on eBay and Reverb.com. Turns out that he's quite active in the Heritage owner's forum and came across an H-555 (basically the H-535 with some added bling) offered there. He hooked me up with the seller and we made the deal over the weekend.

The guitar arrived today, and she's a beaut! I've always loved cherry red ES-335's, and this guitar fills that bill and then some. Needed a little clean-up and a new set of 10's, and she's good to go. I haven't checked the intonation with a tuner yet, but the action on the guitar is great. It has Duncan '59s in it, and they sound just flat fabulous--wonderful clarity when played clean, and a nice growl when the gain is dialed up. The body is flame maple all around with a nice, tight pattern. The photos below don't really do it justice.

So Tio Kimo is my hero right now....even though my wife says he's an "enabler".

Specs from the Heritage website:

Neck: 17 degree peghead pitch; one-piece curly maple neck; single white bound mother of pearl and abalone inlaid head veneer.

Fingerboard: 24 3/4” scale ebony single white bound fingerboard with 22 frets; mother of pearl and abalone inlays.

Body: Double cutaway semi-hollow body with laminated arch curly maple top and back; multiple white bound top and white bound back; solid curly maple rim; single white bound pickguard; with f-holes.

Body Size:

Rim Thickness - 1 1/2”
Body Width - 16”
Body Length - 17 7/8”

Electronics: Two gold humbucking pickups; with two volume and two tone controls; selector switch.

Hardware: Individual gold plated machine heads; gold plated stop bar tailpiece and adjustable bridge.