1980s ESP Custom Stratocaster - 2 Tone Sunburst (Nitro) - Japan - Onboard OD - Gig Bag Included

4/5/2024: Running a sale for the weekend. Price reduced.

Vintage 1980s ESP Custom Stratocaster in 2 tone sunburst.

Nitrocellulose finish has naturally aged into a nice cracked / spiderweb relic'd texture.

Made in Japan.

Seymour Duncan TB6 Trembucker in bridge (Image 23 for back).

Schecter USA Custom Shop hand-wound humbucker in neck (Image 23 for back).

Output jack features an integrated ESP overdrive switch, powered by 9v battery under the pickguard.

ESP Flicker tremolo (simplified) with tremolo bar.

Gotoh Japan tuners.

I imported this guitar from Japan, but the neck pocket has a sticker indicating it was originally sold by the ESP Custom Shop in West Germany (Image 24). Interestingly, there appears to be a "Moon Corporation" sticker underneath. I'm unsure if this refers to Moon PGM, though I know ESP and Moon PGM do have some shared history. I ultimely decided not to risk damaging the top sticker trying to see under it, but the guitar clearly has an intriguing past dating to before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The original neck had unfortunately been scalloped by an amateur and was too much of a hack job to tolerate. As such, I purchased an ESP 400 series neck from the same time period and swapped it on. The heel is marked "NY", indicating it came from the ESP 48th Street Custom Shop in New York (Image 24). I used high-grit sandpaper to remove the "400 series" part of the logo to make it more appropriate for the guitar. I filled all of the old tuner screw holes with wood filler and installed Gotoh Japan tuners.

The guitar came to me with a white pearloid pickguard and an SSS pickup configuration. Strangely, this was paired with just a 3-way switch. This pickguard will be included and is shown in image 25. I'm not certain what make the single coils are, but they are high quality and are likely original to the guitar.

I opted to swap in a brand new black pickguard with an HH pickup configuration so that I could install the high-end humbuckers previously mentioned. I used a brand new wiring harness with a 3-way switch and large 500k pots, minus the output jack, which I left alone so as to retain the onboard ESP overdrive circuit. This process involved widening the body route, which I did with care. I finished by lining the route with copper shielding.

Note the guitar has never been drilled for a back plate, indicating it was ordered as such.

The guitar is super nice to play, especially after having been refurbished. It has a great vintage feel and sounds awesome. The overdrive switch has some serious punch with these humbuckers. The frets have some wear, primarily in the form of divots around the first 5-7 frets, but are totally playable. See images 9, 10, 11 for close-up shots of the frets.

Cosmetically, I'm conservatively calling the condition "Good". The guitar certainly shows it's age, but in this era of purposefully relic'd guitars, I would argue it does so in a desirable way. There isn't anything I would actually classify as "damage". It has nicks, scraches, and cracking nitro paint, but everything falls within the realm of standard aging and playwear. It really looks quite cool. Please view all images, as they do a good job of conveying the overall cosmetic condition.

I polished the frets, oiled the fretboard, and polished the body.

Nut width: 1.65".

Scale: 25.5".

Weight: 8.46 lbs.

This guitar will ship in a padded gig bag with the original loaded pickguard and a leather Aria Pro II strap, all shown in Image 25.

Free shipping to USA.