The ESP Guitar Company

I would like to see Pushead or ESP themselves chime in. But, by looking at the logo on the headstock, and the control cavity cover, and tremolo spring covers, my suspicion is that what you have is not truly an ESP, but something someone put a custom paint job on and put an ESP custom decal on the headstock. I hope for you I am wrong.

When people come to this section, they're not particularly looking for my opinion.  That being said, unless it's really old (like early 80s), I'd lean toward fake.

Spring cavity cover isn't a typical ESP style, neither is the control cavity shape or the neck plate.  The belly cut is oddly shaped, as it the truss-rod channel.  In the late 70's and early 80's, ESP made Fender licensed replacement parts.  Some of the earliest M-I guitars were Stratocaster shaped with ESP logos, but this body shape isn't that.

I could be wrong, I'm not very familiar with the guitars from that era, but without being able to inspect the guitar further, I'd shy away from it.

Its bizarre though. The body iss bound with abalone, something ESPs are somewhat famous for using a lot of. The tuning machines are definitely not original (Jackson).

Any chance you can take better photos of binding and headstock logo?  I'd also like to see the neck plate and the inside of the control cavity.

When you attach them to the board, select the "original" or "large" size, or link from a separate site like photobucket.

Interesting, control cavity just doesn't look right but I don't think I've seen very many ESP's from 87 so hard to say. Hopefully ESP themselves will chime in soon. Cool that it says ESP and what appears to be "graffiti" on the neck, reefing to their graffiti series I would assume. Looks cool man, hopefully it turns out to be the real deal.

I really appreciate you taking the time to check it out. I can't find anything about the "Grafitti" series online but that may be normal considering that it was 1987. I paid next to nothing for the guitar so any good news on the history/value is bonus to the fact that it is a really nice playing and nice sounding guitar.

Thanks again!!

There actually is a thread in the past models category where some guys have posted some of their graffiti's. I am not sure of the exact time period the graffiti series existed, 87 seems a little to early but maybe not?? See below link.

http://www.espguitars.com/forums/1963218/posts/2151730-post-your-esp-graffitis

Now that I look at that thread again there is a pic of a guy holding one that he said was in 89, so I guess 87 probably isn't out of the realm of possibilities. 

Either the headstock is very fat or the logo placement is making it look that way. I would lean towards this being a "pastcaster" of some sorts. The ESP Graffitis I have seen have pretty much all had the ESP pointed headstock.

What do you think about the ESP wrote on the neck and the neck #s and dates matching the #s and date in the neck cavity of the body Big D??

Aaron H. wrote:

ESP Team, I need help IDing this new (to me) ESP guitar. The previous owner knew almost nothing about its history but as soon as I picked it up and played it, the sale was a done deal.

There is no serial# on the headstock and I have not removed the neck (would prefer not to) to see if there are any markings there.  Any idea on model, year it was built, etc.?

 

Hello Aaron,

Thank you for submitting all of the detailed photos of your instrument. We also appreciate all the great feedback from the community!

Unfortunately this item does not appear to be a legitimate ESP instrument, based on the photos and information provided. The neck pocket and control cavity shapes are inconsistent with those used by ESP. This type of neck style would have the truss rod access available at the heel of the neck, and the content of written material on the heel of the neck would differ from what was shown. In addition, the neck pocket should not have the hole in the center, indicating a difference in production style. Lastly, this specific graphic is dissimilar to those produced by ESP during the late 80's.

Nathan S. wrote:

What do you think about the ESP wrote on the neck and the neck #s and dates matching the #s and date in the neck cavity of the body Big D??

Could just mean someone was trying to make a knock off ESP and a builder wrote ESP on the neck to indicate the build project. Hard to say. Really might not mean anything at all. ESP mentioned below it doesn't look like markings they would use.