❌SOLD❌ Heritage H555 Thinline Maple Antique, 1989

Built from 1989 to about 2017 at the historic Parsons Street plant in Kalamazoo Michigan, the Heritage H555 evokes the higher end, groundbreaking thinline archtop electrics of the late 1950s.

The Heritage Guitar Company was founded in 1985 by a number of former Gibson employees who chose not to relocate when Norlin, then Gibson’s parent company, moved operations to Nashville in 1984. They stayed behind, purchased the plant and began producing professional and higher grade instruments clearly influenced by their experiences.

The Heritage H555 was an ‘upscale’ version of the standard H535. The H555 uses higher grade woods with more pronounced figuring, has binding around the body, fingerboard, head and F-holes plus around the Maple pickguard, gold plating, and a figured Maple neck with Ebony fingerboard and historic ‘Diamonds and Arrows’ Mother of Pearl / Abalone inlay set. In comparison, the H535 has plainer woods, only the body is bound, a Mahogany neck with an Indian Rosewood fingerboard and dot position markers. The build quality is equally high for both models. As with most thinline archtop electrics, the body is built with Maple laminates for feedback rejection and stability. Unlike Gibson production, the frets are installed after the fingerboard is bound, which allows them to extend to the outer edge of the binding.

This Heritage H555 was built during the first year of that model’s production, and is in overall very good condition with only the slightest wear. The hardware is all Gold plated, featuring Grover Roto-Matics, a Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop tailpiece, and in this case Voodoo pickups built by the late Peter Florance, who died in his shop on May 7 2019. Peter Florance was one of the earlier boutique pickup builders, located in Pennsylvania. His pickups are highly regarded.

The original Heritage hard shell case is included.