Is this the original ESP MII ???

Daniyar B.Daniyar B.
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    Daniyar B.

    Hello everyone, I need your expert opinion.

    No questions to the fingerboard, it looks original. The question to the body of the guitar. First, a strange arrangement of the knobs (in the photo of these years they are different). Second, I have waves on the paintwork. It feels like the guitar was overdried or not fully polished.

    Do you have an opinion on this?

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    Daniyar B.
    Daniyar B. wrote

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      Pushead
      Pushead wrote

      Hi Daniyar, You can see the plastic (or rubber) plug near the pickup where the original volume pot was. It looks like a previous owner drilled a new hole and moved the volume pot to it's current location, further from the bridge pickup.

       

      Based on the look of the photos, I'd guess the guitar has been refinished. There's a lot of orange peal that you can see in this photo.

      But people have also suggested that ESP used thinner finishes back in the early to mid 90s, and seeing waves in the finish is pretty common on black finished guitars. It's hard to know exactly how old the guitar is since we don't see the back of the headstock.

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        Danik B.
        Danik B. wrote

        Thank for the quick reply mate! 

        The guitar is from 2008. The fingerboard is in excellent condition. More detailed photos in the post below. I was just confused by the ripple on the surface, started to worry that the body of the guitar is an outright fake, which was assembled from the original pickups, headstock and fingerboard. If you look closely, there's no doubt about it overall, but the ripples all over the guitar are weird. You can see that they go along the structure of the wood.

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          Danik B.
          Danik B. wrote

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            Pushead
            Pushead wrote

            Yeah, certainly not fake. I know they had maple necked M-IIs in other colors in the 90s, but in 2008, black was all that was available. Hard to say why the ripples appeared.

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              Danik B.
              Danik B. wrote

              This guitar is probably from the 2009 lineup. As far as I understand, the manufacturer makes a batch first and then announces the year after that.

              The ESP M-II maple EMG spec definitely existed, but not in these years, I agree. Most likely swapped with the Seymour Duncan, since they moved the button too.

              Yeah, the ripples are weird. Is it possible to fix it with polishing? Or just forget about it? 

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                Daniyar B.
                Daniyar B. wrote

                UPD

                A craftsman at a local guitar shop that makes custom guitars said this happens, and advised not to worry. He said that the paint most likely used a soft primer, or not enough of it. That's why all the paintwork is a little "settled". Usually, this happens with guitars with Alder bodies. But sometimes in other woods as well.

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