1990 ESP Maverick

Details

This is a guitar I lusted after for a long time, and I spotted this one on a google image search and emailed the owner and was able to work out a deal. It’s in great condition and one of my favorite finishes on any guitar. It’s a metallic purple that has great depth to it. The maple fretboard contrasts nicely with the purple and I think this is one of the best looking guitars in my collection.

Hardware is a later model ESP Synclear/Sinclair tremolo, ESP branded tuners, an SH-100 neck rails pickup and what I think is an LH-200 humbucker in the bridge - it has a ceramic magnet and is fairly high output. The SH-100 is wired in parallel from factory but I far prefer it wired in series, although I ended up swapping out both pickups for a Dimarzio Fast Track 2 in the neck and a Dimarzio Transition in the bridge. I don’t think these pickups were a massive improvement over the factory setup, the FT2 is a little too high output for the neck and the Transition is a tad too bright in a guitar with only a single volume control and a bright character to begin with.

This is my favorite body shape and that’s why my ESP collection is so heavy on Mavericks instead of M-II’s, Mirages, or Horizons. It’s on the small side, but very comfortable to play and the short scale length is fantastic. Interestingly, the neck on this one is very “bare” feeling, like an oiled neck. It’s hard to tell if it was ordered from the factory like that (definitely possible) or if years of playing or maybe some light sand paper was applied but either way, it feels just as good as any high end USA Jackson, Kramer, etc oiled neck from the same time period.