Esprit

The specs above are the Japanese Master Series Esprit, the mid-1980s set-neck. No current Fender model carries the name. Standard, Elite, and Ultra differ in the rows above. The Robben Ford signature and the Squier Master Series Esprit are later guitars.

Construction

The job was a 335 for a player who would not buy a Gibson, without the guitar pretending to be a Strat. Set neck. Two humbuckers. Chambers in a solid body. Symmetrical horns, a step larger than the sister model. It went out in the Master Series, beside the Flame and beside an archtop with James D’Aquisto’s name on it.

Early 1980s, under CBS. Fender wanted high-quality alternatives to Gibson. Not copies. The company asked Dan Smith. Vintage Guitar, first published January 1998, says two of his designs were built: the Flame and the Esprit. Alder, routed tone chambers, maple tops, set necks. The Flame is slightly larger than a Les Paul, with offset cutaways, and it was the Les Paul alternative. The Esprit is slightly larger again, the horns are symmetrical, and it was the alternative to an ES-335. Both got special-design Schaller humbuckers and a fine-tuning tailpiece. The D’Aquisto is the archtop. The Flame is the other double-cut. Neither is this guitar.

Not Fullerton. One Two Testing, January 1985: Japanese-built, American-designed. The Blue Book of Guitar Values: produced in Japan. Fachblatt Musikmagazin, February 1987, on a factory visit later translated at daeschler.com, puts the Master Series in Matsumoto and calls the Flame and the Esprit Fujigen guitars. The United States supplied the rough draft, a double cutaway and two humbuckers. Takayuki Hirabayashi’s team did the rest. That visit says they were not offered to Japanese buyers.

Dan Smith told Reverb News, published 12 April 2018, why so few arrived. “We introduced the line, we had pretty good response, but Fuji had manufacturing problems and we didn’t get any for over a year.” Then CBS pulled the plug. “They were good guitars, they were made real well, they sounded good and everything else — but they weren’t Fender.” To Vintage Guitar he added that they had succeeded as instruments and in public perception, and that the sale, and the transition around it, may have ended the line early.

The books call the launch 1984. Smith’s shipping window is wider. The Blue Book: introduced in 1984, and Standard, Elite, and Ultra each made in 1984 only. tcgakki’s Fender Japan history dates the Master Series to 1984. One Two Testing was already reviewing a Frost White Elite in January 1985. Smith could not find quantity records. He estimated a few thousand Flame and Esprit guitars together, late 1983 through 1985. Shop cards and auctions also date Esprits to 1983 and to 1985. ATB’s Elite card says 1983. That card, and the start of his estimate, are earlier than the Blue Book’s 1984. A 1985 guitar is later than “1984 only.”

Fender’s catalogue line, quoted in that review, calls the body tone-chambered: “strategically shaped and positioned hollow channels carved in the body.” Scale 24¾ in. The neck joins almost without a heel, which the reviewer marks as a Yamaha habit from Smith’s years there, and the neck itself — slim, wide, flat — is what those fingers called a Dan Smith neck. The Esprit’s was fuller than the Flame’s, the body fractionally weightier. Twenty-two frets, quite tall. Named weights are single guitars and they do not agree. Gardiner Houlgate’s 1984 Standard: 3.87 kg. The Twelfth Fret’s 1984 Standard: 9.038 lbs, also printed there as 4.10 kg. All Music’s 1984 Elite: 9 lbs 6 oz.

The grades are in the specs above. The arguments are not. Vintage Guitar calls the Elite inlay diamond-flake. The Blue Book calls it a snowflake, and so does ATB’s 1983 card. Vintage Guitar’s design note gives the series maple tops. The Blue Book moves the Ultra onto a carved spruce top and a bound ebony board. tcgakki says that Ultra, with the three D’Aquisto models, was made to order. A shop history, not an order book.

The review played an Elite. Black plastic covers. Roller saddles into miniature fine-tuners, and a warning: loosen one too far and the knob unscrews and vanishes. Humbuckers alone were “soft and furry.” The TBX tones are passive, center at 5 — an ordinary tone to the left, a mid-and-treble lift to the right, two resistors and a capacitor, no battery. The coil tap goes cleaner and thinner. The reviewer thought the TBX did more of the single-coil job. The Standard, in that review, has no splittable coils, which matches the Blue Book’s two knobs and a three-way, against four knobs and a coil-tap on the Elite and Ultra. Against the chamber talk, the complaint was short sustain up the neck on a bend. The reviewer preferred the Flame. Both, the magazine said, were very expensive.

No current Fender carries the name. The Robben Ford signature is a later guitar, and so is the Squier Master Series Esprit. Guitar World, 12 March 2026, dates a Japan signature to 1987–1993 and a U.S. Custom Shop run to 1994–2002, at 24.75 in, and calls that model discontinued. Blue Book Squier 034-3000 is 2005–06: basswood body, set mahogany neck, dot-block rosewood, Duncan Designed humbuckers. MusicRadar, 30 October 2007, describes chambered mahogany instead, a three-a-side headstock less traditional than the Fender’s, and heads the review at £399. Sources differ on that Squier’s body wood. Either wood, it is not this Fujigen guitar.

The Starcaster is the earlier American semi: bolt-on, f-holes, a center block, 25.5 in. The 1985 review and Vintage Guitar describe chambers cut into a solid body. Neither describes f-holes.

Players

Robben Ford is the player the sources name. The guitar is easy to fold into the signature that followed. The accounts do not fold that way.

Vintage Guitar: in 1986 Fender brought him on as an endorser of the Esprit, then reworked the concept and called the result the Robben Ford signature. Ford’s own telling, to Guitarist, reported by Guitar World in March and April 2026, sits next to that. He calls it “the Robben Ford custom model, the Esprit Ultra,” and says it was not called that at first. “I was the only guy playing that guitar. It was their version of a semi-hollow, which it wasn’t, but it had sound cavities in it and the woods were very bright.” He was part of the choice of woods and of the design. He had been on a 335 and wanted a solidbody. Fender came to him. “I used that guitar a ton. That’s the Talk to Your Daughter [1988] album. And I used one guitar exclusively for a few years.” Then people asked, “and they decided to make it a Custom Shop Robben Ford model.”

On his account, the 1988 album is the guitar he was already playing, before that Custom Shop model. Guitar World’s 1987–2002 window, above, is the magazine’s dating of the later instrument. A 1986 endorsement and a 1987 Japan signature can both be true. Neither date turns a 1984 Standard into his guitar.

He was still on one in 1991. Premier Guitar, 9 April 2026: on tour with the Blue Line, “playing the Fender Esprit Ultra,” he went into Black Market in San Francisco for strings, played a Telecaster, and bought it. That Telecaster is a different guitar. The Ultra is what was in his hands when he found it.

What he is known for later is not this instrument. Premier Guitar in 2013 has Bringing It Back Home on a 1966 Epiphone Riviera, one pickup, the whole record. A 2014 rig rundown has that Riviera and a 1960 Telecaster on the road. The PRS McCarty with his name, announced in 2022, is another maker. Guitar World: 200 of them that year. No other player is named on an Esprit in these accounts.

Rarity

You cannot order a new one. Fender has not put the Esprit back under its own name.

No Esprit total has been published. Smith told Vintage Guitar he could not find the records. The “few thousand” is Flame and Esprit together, late 1983 through 1985, and it is his estimate. The Blue Book’s “1984 only” is a dating claim, not a count, and it is narrower than his window and narrower than the 1985 guitars in the sale rooms. tcgakki’s made-to-order note, if it holds, puts the Ultra at the thin end of that run. It is not a serial list.

What is actually thinner: Schallers still under the black covers, a fine-tuner with its knobs, an Ultra on the spruce top the Blue Book describes. Ford’s own Ultra, if it survives, is one object. A Squier Esprit, and a Custom Shop guitar with his name on the truss-rod cover, are later instruments.

Value

Informal estimate, 30 October 2026. Not an appraisal.

Asking prices are not sold prices. A Stratocaster band, a Starcaster band, or an ES-335 band does not apply. No American list price for the Master Series Esprit has turned up. The period price in print is British. One Two Testing, January 1985, has the Elite Esprit at £830, and the Ultra Flame reviewed beside it at £820. The magazine called both very expensive. That is 1985 money.

New street. None. No current Fender Esprit.

Used. Reverb’s guide for its Esprit Elite bucket, filed there as 1985–1987, showed no sold estimate when the page was checked. The guide says a range appears once more of them sell. The Standard’s guide showed no used estimate either. There is no order-counted band.

Named asks on Reverb’s Esprit index, as that index stood on 19 October 2026. A modified 1984 Elite at $2,149.95. The seller replaces the Schallers and the fine-tuner, so it is not a clean one. An early-1980s Standard in Autumn Burst at $1,999. A 1985 Standard at $1,797. A 1985 sunburst at $1,259.99, down from $1,399.99. A Frost White Elite at $2,100. A black Standard at $1,050, down from $1,400. A 1984 tobacco sunburst at $1,500, down from $1,600. Asks. Off that index, the Twelfth Fret was asking $2,750 for a 1984 Standard, and ATB listed a 1983 Elite at £995.

Named hammers, not a median. Gardiner Houlgate, 5 December 2025, a 1984 Standard in black, original hard case, sold for £700. The estimate was £800–£1,200. Great Western Auctions, 10 May 2023, a Japan Esprit in cherry burst, circa 1985, serial 40300609, with a Fender case, hammer £820. Two British auction results. They are not an American sold series.

The signature is a different market. One ask on the same Reverb index, a 1986 Japan Robben Ford signature in cherry sunburst, was $3,570.34. One listing. Not a Master Series Esprit, and not a guitar he owned. No auction of an Esprit he played has turned up.

The Squier has its own used market, under that name. Those sales are not this guitar’s.

See also

• Starcaster — Fender’s 1976 bolt-on semi, f-holes and a 25.5 in scale; not this set neck
• ES-335 — the thinline, center-block Gibson this chambered solid was drawn against
• Les Paul Standard — the solid the sister Flame was aimed at; the Flame is a different Master Series model

Sources

• Vintage Guitar: The Fender Master Series (Gary Koehler; originally January 1998) — Smith’s chambered solidbody; alder, maple tops, set necks; Esprit as the 335 alternative, slightly larger than the Flame, symmetrical cutaways; Schaller humbuckers; fine-tuning tailpiece; Standard, Elite, and Ultra appointments; finish lists; Kahler option, few shipped; a few thousand Flame and Esprit shipped late 1983–85, no records found; 1986, Ford as Esprit endorser, then the signature
• Reverb News: Dan Smith interview (published 12 April 2018) — Fuji manufacturing delay of over a year; CBS pulled the plug; “they weren’t Fender”
• One Two Testing: Fender Flame/Esprit (Paul Colbert, January 1985) — Japanese-built, American-designed, Dan Smith; 24¾ in; tone-chambered wording; TBX; roller saddles and fine-tuners; 22 tall frets; Standard without coil-split; Frost White Elite Esprit reviewed; short sustain on bends; Elite Esprit £830, Ultra Flame £820
• Blue Book of Guitar Values: Esprit and Flame (Master Series) — introduced 1984, Japan; Standard, Elite, and Ultra each “mfg. 1984 only”; woods, inlays, knobs, coil-tap, tuners, spruce top on the Ultra; Flame smaller
• Fachblatt Musikmagazin 2/1987, translated at daeschler.com — Matsumoto; Flame and Esprit as Fujigen guitars; U.S. rough draft, Hirabayashi’s team for the rest; not offered to Japanese buyers, on that visit
• tcgakki: Fender Japan history, Master Series — 1984; D’Aquisto, Esprit, and Flame, each in Ultra, Elite, and Standard; Esprit Ultra and the three D’Aquistos made to order; Elite as maple top, chambered alder, medium scale, coil tap and TBX; Ford, then the ES-RF signature
• Guitar World: Robben Ford on the Esprit Ultra (12 March 2026) — Ford to Guitarist; signature dated by the magazine as Japan 1987–1993, U.S. Custom Shop 1994–2002, 24.75 in, discontinued
• Guitar World: Robben Ford, Two Shades of Blue (14 April 2026) — his account of the Ultra, Talk to Your Daughter (1988), and the later Custom Shop model
• Premier Guitar: Robben Ford’s slow burn (9 April 2026) — 1991, Blue Line tour, playing the Esprit Ultra; the Black Market Telecaster is a different guitar
• Premier Guitar: one guitar, one album (15 April 2013) — Bringing It Back Home on a 1966 Epiphone Riviera, not an Esprit
• Premier Guitar: Rig Rundown, Robben Ford (19 March 2014) — 1966 Riviera and 1960 Telecaster on the road
• Guitar World: PRS Robben Ford signature (11 October 2022) — a PRS McCarty, 200 examples in 2022; not this Fender
• MusicRadar: Squier Master Series Esprit (30 October 2007) — later Squier; chambered mahogany in that review; three-a-side headstock; review headed £399
• Blue Book: Squier Esprit, no. 034-3000 — 2005–06; basswood body; set mahogany neck; Duncan Designed humbuckers
• The Twelfth Fret: 1984 Esprit Standard — one guitar: 24.75 in and 628.65 mm; nut 1.720 in and 43.72 mm; 9.038 lbs and 4.10 kg; ask $2,750
• All Music: 1984 Esprit Elite, modified — one guitar: 24.75 in scale, 1.69 in nut, 9 lbs 6 oz; Schallers and fine-tuner replaced; ask $2,149.95, also on Reverb
• ATB Guitars: 1983 Esprit Elite — shop card dated 1983; chambered alder, carved maple, snowflake inlays, 24.75 in scale, 12 in radius, Schaller humbuckers, coil-split, TBX; listed at £995
• Reverb: Fender Esprit marketplace index — asks as the index stood on 19 October 2026, including the signature ask at $3,570.34, which is a different model
• Reverb: Esprit Elite guide, filed 1985–1987 — no sold estimate on the guide when the page was checked
• Gardiner Houlgate, 5 December 2025, lot 415 — 1984 Standard, black, 3.87 kg, sold £700, estimate £800–£1,200
• Great Western Auctions, 10 May 2023, lot 454 — Japan, cherry burst, circa 1985, serial 40300609, hammer £820