dating an ESP Custom

  • Thread starter Thread starter colimofsmoke
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colimofsmoke

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Hey all, got a question here, I have in my hands what looks to be an ash ESP Eclipse. Been borrowing it, and possibly purchasing. headstock says ESP and Eclipse on the front, has a circle logo on the back that says "ESP CUSTOM GUITARS". neck is bolt-on, and plate has a serial number stamped in it in the format 2XXXX (all numbers). No letter designation visible. From my understanding based on some interwebs research, it's a stock spec guitar (rather than custom spec), but made in the Custom Shop in Japan. Can anyone confirm? How might I date this?
 
Possible, I had a stock M II from the Early 90's and had them (Hollywood) replace the neck and the new neck had the Hollywood Custom Shop credentials.
 
ffyywwd#

Ff=factory
Yy=year
Ww=week
D=day
#=order your guitar was made that day
 
The custom guitars stamp was just a way of advertising that as a company they offered custom guitars, but a lot of 90s standard series models had that stamp and as far as I know, weren't custom shop guitars. There are a lot of bolt-on ash horizons from the 90s that have that stamp, and sellers on ebay try to pass them off as custom shop. In 2000 I was looking at a purple ash Horizon with that stamp, when it was still being made, and $700 was the retail price new from online dealers. I decided to get an LTD H-300 for $550 new instead, because it was less, and because everyone made such a big deal about neck-thru construction.
 
yeah, dude wants $500 with a gig bag. Set neck/neck-thru is what i'm after, I use a lot of resonant notes and really prefer the set-neck resonance and sustain.
 
Post pics....it sounds just like a standard series Eclipse from the 90's. All the guitars had the custom stamp on the back, but didn't mean squat.

They also don't track the serial numbers from back then as they didn't mean anything like they do today.
 
8409204027_5a52b1262f_z.jpg

8409204923_60fe548ec0_z.jpg

8409204071_cff2cc70e6_z.jpg
 
That definatley a standard series Eclipse with a mahogony body, not ash.

Heres a pic from the 1998 catalog.

1998_ESP_USA_page_08_zps80ba1cbc.jpg
 
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