Identifying/dating Duncan 59 neck pickup

[Cdwillis]

I just got this 59 neck pickup in a trade. I've never seen a Duncan baseplate with these notched out legs? Does anybody know the story on these? I've only ever seen the square tab legs on these vintage PAF style long legged base plates. The first thing I thought of was that maybe it was OEM on a guitar that had weird pickup mounting routes like Ernie Ball Music Man Axis or the EVH Wolfgangs. I'm not really sure.

 

[beaubrummels]

Someone cut the baseplate to direct mount it.

 

[Cdwillis]

The holes haven't been torn up by wood screws. I screwed it into the pickup ring and soldered it into my guitar. The tabs don't look hand cut.

 

[Mincer]

They could have used smaller screws to pass right through the holes- that's what I did with my direct mounted Duncans. I used machine screws into threaded inserts.

 

[Masta' C]

Mid-90s to early 2000s production, by the way, in case you were still wondering about the age