ESP Navigator Esparto — White Body with Rosewood Fingerboard

Within my own experience, Navigator guitars had long gone underappreciated in the world of Japanese vintage instruments.
Collectors and enthusiasts focused their attention almost exclusively on Greco, Tokai, and Fernandes, leaving Navigator largely overlooked.

In recent years, however, the reputation of early Navigators has begun to rise — and rightly so.
In fact, they may well equal or even surpass their contemporaries.
This renewed appreciation, I suspect, stems from a broader re-evaluation of early ESP itself.

The old ESP (1975–1980) and the new ESP (1980 onward) are, in essence, two entirely different entities.
The former was a small garage workshop, built in a converted medical clinic in Shibuya —
a place run by people who simply loved guitars.
The latter grew into a large international corporation, staffed not by craftsmen but by corporate professionals.

Guitarists care deeply about whether an instrument has soul — whether the touch of the human hand can still be felt in it.
They don’t love a guitar because it’s a product of mass production or mechanical precision.
I don’t mean to say that modern ESP guitars lack that quality —
only that what players truly seek is a guitar that reflects the love and spirit of its maker.
That, I believe, is why the old ESP era is now being rediscovered and appreciated anew.

Ash three-piece body. Weight: 3.55 kg (including strings).
(Updated August 25, 2016)