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Woody's Heritage Millennium Limited Edition Guitar Page
(Millennium Limited Edition "Les Paul sized" guitars are often known as a "Heritage Millie")

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

 

You could be just another face in the music crowd and play what everyone else plays 
one of those mass-produced "custom" guitars bought off the shelf
or you may even play a guitar where computer-controlled lasers  have replaced humans 
(with proud cost and job-cutting smiles from the manufacturer)
or  
You could be privileged enough to play a Heritage guitar where, like a high end Martin, 
each guitar is essentially hand crafted (read real "custom shop") by master luthiers 
in one of the oldest original stringed-instrument factories in the Western Hemisphere.
(likely second only to Martin Guitar): 
225 Parsons Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

These instruments may be a bit more expensive than your 
average name-brand computer-created cookie-cutter "custom" guitar 
but aren't you worth it?

Heritage guitars are commonly built using hand-picked Michigan Curly Maple (CM) exotic woods.

Heritage Owners Club
2008 Annual Heritage Owner's Club  "Parsons Street Pilgrimage I" on YouTube
2009 Annual Heritage Owner's Club "Parson's Street Pilgrimage II" on YouTube
The 2010 Annual Heritage Owner's Club "Parson's Street Pilgrimage III 
is scheduled for August 6.   You should be there!!

Consider that, with a few exceptions, the larger mass-retailers
will commonly list guitars in their catalogs from companies 
that are set up to mass-produce items. 
A manufacturer that can build large numbers of instruments infers 
you may be sacrificing the uniqueness and quality of what you are playing. 
The margin of profit is better selling mass-produced assembly-line instruments 
compared to one hand made unit such as a high end instrument.
Consider the handcrafted uniqueness of these high end guitars 
against the computer or assembly-line created instruments made by many big-box companies.

Rarely will you see a Heritage or Martin D45 listed in the printed catalogs of these retailers.
You will commonly see the standard issue Fender, Epiphone, and Gibsons. How boring.

QUICK HERITAGE OVERVIEW
After a major guitar manufacturer abandoned the city of it's birth in the 1984 move 
from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Tennessee, 
a number of the original craftsmen stayed right in the same building 
at 225 Parsons Street making guitars.
They continue to work, mentor and teach the upcoming generations of luthiers.
Those guitars, known as The Heritage, are essentially all hand made 
and are some of the best in the business.
 
Click on the picture above to see the outfit
that chucked off it's hometown for the glitter of the big city

My Gibson Les Paul Recording dates to the early 1970s. It was built in Kalamazoo.
I no longer own any Gibson guitars built in Tennessee or Montana.
For those that say Heritage is a knock-off of the original,
I'd say: "Baby, you've got it backwards."

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge it for a closer view

 Woody's "Chestnut Sunburst" Heritage Millennium Limited Edition with an original hard shell case

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

This guitar, sequence number 003, was the first of the Heritage Millennium Limited Edition series produced for general sale (2000-2001).
According to Jay Wolfe of Wolfe Guitars in April, 2010 - the original music store that sold this instrument - 
Heritage had told him that guitars sequence numbered 001 and 002 were pre-production prototypes and were never sold. 
Those two units had various test modifications on them.


SN:   Q31403     The third guitar built on Monday February 21, 2000
SN Q31403   Q = 2000
366-314=52nd day of 2000 (Leap Year = Feb 21, 2000)
03=The third guitar completed on this date


BELOW LEFT: Inside guitar reads: "Millennium Ltd Edit CNSB - First regular production model"
CNSB = "Chestnut Sunburst"
 
ABOVE RIGHT: The guitar was originally offered for sale by Heritage dealer Wolfe Guitars in Jupiter, Florida  (Wolfe's current Heritage inventory).
Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view
Below: Heritage craftsman (Russell) displays handiwork on a newly completed Millennium Limited Edition (2000) guitar.

Above left: Documentation for the 2000 Millennium Limited Edition
Above right: Documentation for the 2001 Millennium Limited Edition

Do you have a picture of you with your Heritage Millennium Limited Edition guitar that you can email me? 
Do you know of someone that has one? Ask them to email me.
Also - if you have one - what number in the series is it, what year (Q or P) and where do you live?

2000 Millennium Limited Edition
Headstock reads THE HERITAGE in pearl and has "MILLENNIUM" in a solid pearl ribbon banner
APPARENTLY THERE WERE ABOUT 67 OF THESE JEWELS BUILT IN 2000

001  PROTOTYPE?	002   PROTOTYPE?	003  Woody - Colorado	004	005
006 Drew - Missouri	007	008	009	010
011	012	013	014	015
016	017	018	019	020
021	022  Richard - Louisville, KY	023	024	025
026	027	028	029	030
031	032 Moritz - Vienna, Austria	033	034	035
036	037	038	039	040  Ikari - Japan
041	042	043	044	045
046	047	048	049	050
051	052	053	054	055
056	057	058	059	060
061	062	063	064	065
066	067

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view
2001 Millennium Limited Edition
Peghead reads THE HERITAGE in pearl

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

 BELOW: A few pictures of the Heritage factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Above left: The front door to the Heritage Guitar factory in Kalamazoo, MI.

Above left: Master craftsman and musician Rendal Wall - inventor of the HRW Pickups
Above right: Heritage co-owner and craftsman Bill Paige

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

			photos and video by  Lorelei Linwood

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

Heritage Owners Club
2008 Annual Heritage Owner's Club  "Parsons Street Pilgrimage I" on YouTube
2009 Annual Heritage Owner's Club "Parson's Street Pilgrimage II" on YouTube
The 2010 Annual Heritage Owner's Club "Parson's Street Pilgrimage III 
is scheduled for August 6.   You should be there!!

Heritage Owners Club 2008 Inaugural Parsons Street Pilgrimage
  Video Part 1    Video Part 2      Video Part 3

Heritage co-founder Marvin Lamb on You Tube

You Tube tour of Heritage factory with explanation about its birth - pretty good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKCx-RbnaYs

Read more at the Heritage Owners Club at:
http://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/index.php?s=c88a3f931931727bad8db72b1d3a9b8e&showforum=1
- This group sponsors an annual Heritage Club gathering of guitar owners at the Kalamazoo factory.
- Check out the videos listed on YouTube or Google "Parsons Street Pilgrimage 2009" (I was there with this guitar)
Video article from the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette newspaper about the Heritage gathering:
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/07/heritage_guitar_owners_make_pi.html

Photographs from the Heritage "Parsons Street Pilgrimage 2009" including factory tour, jamming at the farm:
http://www.ronwarren.com/hoc09/index.htm

HERITAGE MILLENNIUM LIMITED GUITAR
ON YOU TUBE
Heritage Millennium Limited Edition 1
Heritage Millennium Limited Edition 2
Heritage on You Tube    (Click on picture to see more)

(Below) John Sebastian with his Heritage
on stage with Les Paul (Trio) at the Iridium Jazz Club in 2003

Guitarist JOHN SEBASTIAN
 
Below: For more about John, see his web page at: http://www.johnbsebastian.com/ 


Above: John on stage with his Heritage behind him

CLICK HERE FOR VARIOUS HERITAGE ACCESSORIES

Try clicking on a picture to enlarge for a closer view

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Contact WOODY for questions or comments about this page via  email. 
All personal comments, pictures copyright 1996-2010 - R. Linwood (4L RANCH)
LAST MODIFIED:

Since 16 Nov 2009:

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