A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Greetings :
We are placing items which belonged to my late father online for sale.
As a non instrument player, I am struggling with one item. The other items were more or less straight forward.

After research, I managed to establish this is a humbucker, two wired. There is no name nor any number.

Would anyone be able to assist in perhaps identifying it, or narrowing down the possibilities please?
Also some verbiage to place in the advert would help, other than a 'vintage humbucker' I have no idea what to write.
I also have no means to test it, so would be 'as seen' so to speak.

Hopefully, the photos I took will suffice.

Many thanks in advance !

Due to the double cream bobbins and hex heads it appears to be a type of Dimarzio Super Distortion clone, which were very prevalent after the namesake was introduced in the early 70s.

Another clue are the long legs. In layman's terms, this refers to those two tabs with the threaded holes in them. This pickup almost certainly started its life in a Les Paul copy, probably a Japanese lawsuit guitar. Maybe Maxon?

Others are sure to chime in. We love a good mystery around here.

Also, the base appears to be made out of nickel/silver which usually means it's at least of a decent quality. However, without any other name/brand identifiers, it's probably not worth more than $10 or so on the used market. I don't think that it's going to turn out to be some kind of barn find...

medtoplon wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 6:25 am I also have no means to test it, so would be 'as seen' so to speak.

If you have an instrument amplifier - any kind of instrument amplifier will do for this test - you can plug an instrument cable into the amplifier, then clip the red wire to the "tip" of the cable and the white wire to the "sleeve" of the cable, and gently tap on the pole pieces (the 12 round things on top) with a magnetic object like a small screwdriver, and you should hear a tapping/clicking/thumping noise from the amplifier when you do that.

Alternately, if you have a multimeter, you can measure the resistance by attaching one probe to the white wire and the other to the red wire. You should see a resistance of somewhere between 5k ohms and 20k ohms. The exact value doesn't really matter, but if it's zero, or something like 150k, then there is probably something wrong with the pickup.

All the other posts nailed it!

I am not sure if as @tobyjohn mentioned that the mounting plate is nickel-silver (it looks like tin or steel to me), it certainly does not have a Dimarzio brass plate.

IMHO, it is a paperweight from a pickup ugrade.

My old Gotoh SD clone has similar gray sheathing on the wire, which pits it at late 70s/ early 80s Japanese.

andrewsrea wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 11:07 am All the other posts nailed it!

I am not sure if as @tobyjohn mentioned that the mounting plate is nickel-silver (it looks like tin or steel to me), it certainly does not have a Dimarzio brass plate.

IMHO, it is a paperweight from a pickup ugrade.

Yep. I have a black one just like it. I just ordered a cream one a coupla days ago. I've never had a SD in a guitar. Might be a little to hot/dark for me.

If measured you can figure out if it's the more vintage SD (about 13k ohms) or the modern SD (16k ohms). They do sound different.

idiotsdelight wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2024 1:49 am
If measured you can figure out if it's the more vintage SD (about 13k ohms) or the modern SD (16k ohms). They do sound different.

Not many people know that Dimarzio changed the recipe for their SD during the 90's, to compete with the Duncan Distortion. Good observation!

I prefer the 70's SD which sometimes come in at 11K, which makes the stock Agile pickups of the 2000's (high 9K's to low 10ks) nearly identical. Both the Agile and Dimarzio's used brass plates and 43-gauge coil wire. The difference is Dimarzio used a higher carbon steel hex pole piece (no slugs) and a deeper C8 ceramic magnet (import electronics still have a noticeable content of pot metal in their steel). Which is why I think many people who posted on AGF, never really felt the immediate need to replace their stock bridge pickup from their Agile.