Help me identify this pickup?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Henningsgard
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Steve Henningsgard

Steve Henningsgard

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So back when I was a little(r) kid, I found this pickup in my parents' basement. I had a Squire at the time, and saw that all of my favorite guitar players had humbuckers, which in my mind was the reason my tone wasn't as good as theirs (in retrospect, it may have something to do with my Silvertone PA amplifier into dual 15" Pyle Drivers with my DOD Grunge pedal, but we're getting off-track...). Being the industrious young lad that I was, I took a soldiering iron and cut/melted a bigger hole in the pickguard to fit the 2nd bridge pickup in next to the existing one, and wired it in. Behold! It sounded like ass. But it was fun, and the pickguard was ruined, so I just kept it that way. Soon after, I got a new guitar with a humbucker but again: beside the point.

Can anybody identify this pickup? A bit of google searching brought up little, as there are no identifying marks or logos on it. It's probably some generic no-name pickup, but you never know, right?

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Looks like TV Jones, but old.... hmm...no clue :)
An old Hopf maybe?
 
I think it's MIJ maybe a Teisco. Judging from the pictures It's likely got two magnets in it. I would guess ceramic bars with opposing fields facing the polepieces similar to a P90. The coil probably isn't very tall, and wound with 43AWG or smaller. Similar pickups usually read about 6.5-7k r. Because there's so much metal in them they sound very dark, and can be highly microphonic.

Bend the little tabs back, and slip the cover off. I'd like to see the insides:)
 
Nice pictures. I was wrong about the magnets. It does have two, but not how I thought. The coil is very small. It's probably not a good sounding pickup at all, but it's interesting to see what they were doing. I have a few odditys like that in my collection. I tried them out in my test guitar. None of them sounded good.

Thanks J
 
JCH said:
Nice pictures. I was wrong about the magnets. It does have two, but not how I thought. The coil is very small. It's probably not a good sounding pickup at all, but it's interesting to see what they were doing. I have a few odditys like that in my collection. I tried them out in my test guitar. None of them sounded good.

Thanks J
Click to expand...

Yeah, I feel like I should get some wall-mountable display cases for some of this stuff. I should take pictures of the pickguard I murdered to fit this into my Squier!

Thanks for the compliment on the pictures btw :) The first ones were done with the iSight on my laptop, the close-up inside ones were with my girlfriend's much nicer 7MP beauty :)
 
I have some that are almost the same but have black enamel surrounding the pole pieces/filling in the depression around them. They look identical with the cover off.
Mine come from Bruno, Heitt, Audition, Woolworths branded guitars from about '69 or '70. I really like them - the bridge version really cut through a mix.
 
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