Heritage Guitars is a U.S. company that was founded by employees of the Gibson guitar factory. In the 1980s, Gibson moved production from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee; some of the employees that did not want to move started production of guitars under a new name.

Heritage is a boutique manufacturer with a broad representation of models, from semi-hollow guitars, to large jazz boxes, to solidbody electrics. In these types of guitars, Paul Reed Smith Guitars and Gibson guitars are the closest nominal equivalents. Heritage, however, has advantages over either.

In general, Heritage makes guitars that are superficially similar to Gibson's products, but are constructed in a much more hand-made fashion, and with much greater individual attention to the instrument by the builders. Heritage has made one concession to automated machinery, that being a Plek automated fret-dressing machine which precisely grinds the frets to the proper crown and intonation - everything else is done by hand. Gibson and Paul Reed Smith guitars are almost universally manufactured using CNC machines.

Heritage's main advantages over the equivalent Gibson or Paul Reed Smith models fall into two areas:

1) Master craftsman construct, set up, inspect and approve of every guitar built. These craftsman have decades of experience, and nothing leaves the factory without their approval. Only "Custom Shop" instruments from most other manufacturers get this type of attention, and few (if any...) manufacturers have employees with the vast experience that Heritage can boast in theirs. In short, EVERY guitar made by Heritage is a "Custom Shop" guitar.

2) Heritage guitars are almost universally less expensive than the equivalent Gibson or Paul Reed Smith guitars, and generally feature higher quality components - specifically the wood used in construction and the pickups and bridges.

External link

• http://www.heritageguitar.com/

Guitar manufacturers

Heritage Guitar