Is this a mislabelled bridge pickup?

[pinkymb]

Hey everyone,




I recently bought this off eBay - as new, unused Seymour Duncan 59 PAF pickup for the neck position on a tele I'm making. It is labelled 59N1 so I assumed it's a neck pickup, but when I measure the output it gives me 8.1k which seems too high for a 59 style PAF humbucker. I was expecting somewhere in the region of 7.5k-7.8k. Also the wire seems to be on the short side, and the combination of these things makes me wonder if this has been a bridge pickup that's been mislabelled.

Anyone have any wisdom on these?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Sam SG]

Check the resistance at around 65-70 degrees room temp after the pup has sat awhile to aclamate. Maybe it was in the mail truck near the heat or sonething.
My 59n was about 7.3k

 

[pinkymb]

Thanks for that response. I've had the pickup for a few months now. I just decided to check the resistance to make sure it still worked after sitting in a box. It's definitely outputting 8 .1k at 65-70 degrees room temp.

 

[Sam SG]

Ah gotcha. Yea seems high

 

[Securb]

Seems like it was wound a little hot. That could be a plus. Install it and give it a listen, see if you like it. I would imagine you will need to back it off the strings a bit.

 

[Mincer]

Was it from an authorized dealer?

 

[freefrog]

+/- 9% of tolerance around an average value of 7.5k give a potential maximum reading of 8.1k...

And a higher resistance doesn't always mean more turns on the coils. It can translate the use of a slightly thinner wire gauge (IOW: of a 42AWG closer to a 42.5 than to a 41.5). As a matter of fact, min/max tolerance is also available for wire gauges. Elektrisola mentions values of 1.504k to 1.801k for 1000ft of 42AWG (average reading: 1.652k). Hey, that's +/- 9% of tolerance on each side!

Technical Data by Size | ELEKTRISOLA

www.elektrisola.com

 

[switchman]

It can't be a new ~current~ pickup because the sticker is wrong, A new pickup has detailed model, batch, and date sticker on the baseplate like this .


Yours has the way old pre-2002 style sticker on the bottom. The last letter is suppose to be the winder ID not a 1.
faqs/labels-built-before-2002

I don't remember bridge pickups coming with shorter leads.

Was it sold as New or New Old Stock?
How long is the lead?
Did it come in the original box?

 

[pinkymb]

It was sold as used but like new, opened but likely never installed in a guitar. It's definitely an older model. The lead is 260cm long, but this is my first time with a Seymour Duncan humbucker so I'm not sure if the leads for neck and bridge pickups are typically different lengths.

Seems to be in all in a normal Seymour Duncan plastic box:



There's no model description on the box or on the pamphlet, just a wiring diagram.

Thanks for the great responses, the guitar won't be built for another few weeks yet so I'll have to wait to install it and see if it sounds like a neck pickup! I'm hoping it's just overwound slightly or thinner gauge wire.

 

[Michel347]

It can't be a new ~current~ pickup because the sticker is wrong, A new pickup has detailed model, batch, and date sticker on the baseplate like this .
View attachment 6327236

Yours has the way old pre-2002 style sticker on the bottom. The last letter is suppose to be the winder ID not a 1.
faqs/labels-built-before-2002

I don't remember bridge pickups coming with shorter leads.

Was it sold as New or New Old Stock?
How long is the lead?
Did it come in the original box?

I don't believe it is a 1, but a capital i (I).

 

[switchman]

No model card in the box then?

Yeah - in the FAQ page of the winder letter codes there's no capital "I" though. Maybe Natalie Imbruglia did a guest spot winding pickups back then. That's a 90s joke for you kids out there.

It's right on the spec of a a 59B bridge pickup. I would probably think it was one too. Maybe whoever put the wrong sticker on also trimmed the lead a little short.

 

[freefrog]

The safest way to know if it's a bridge model or not would be to measure its inductance rather than its DCR - albeit even that is subject to vary.

In my data, the inductance of a typical 59N is around 4.2H. The use of a thinner 42AWG wouldn't change that while giving a higher DCR. A bridge model would be higher of 0.4H to 0.6H approximatively (=not a big difference, explaining why neck and bridge transducers are potentially interchangeable for such models ).

 

[switchman]

The safest way to know if it's a bridge model or not would be to measure its inductance rather than its DCR - albeit even that is subject to vary.

In my data, the inductance of a typical 59N is around 4.2H. The use of a thinner 42AWG wouldn't change that while giving a higher DCR. A bridge model would be higher of 0.4H to 0.6H approximatively (=not a big difference, explaining why neck and bridge transducers are potentially interchangeable for such models ).

You mean if for some reason accidentally or on purpose they used a slightly undersized wire wound to usual number of turns?

Wouldn't that produce a slightly smaller coil and therefore slightly less inductance? All else being equal.

You know way more about this stuff than I do...just wanting to understand the principle. Thanks...

 

[freefrog]

Wouldn't that produce a slightly smaller coil and therefore slightly less inductance? All else being equal.

Yes, physics tells us that a narrower / smaller coil tends to give less inductance: that's where "coil geometry" / winding tension / TPL count with a given amount of wire. That's why 5000 turns hand guided or machine wound from a same spool of wire will exhibit slightly different LRC specs / Resonant frequencies / Q factors, even when wrapped around identical bobbins.

But with the same number of turns (overall and per layer) laid in the same way around identical bobbins, inductance won't change in a significant way between thin and thicker wires IME.
A 'beyond the limits" example of that is a P90 sized humbucker tested here: it has twice the same bobbin with the same screw poles. Turns per bobbin are necessarily identical or close enough, since this model is an efficient humbucker. Wire gauges are vastly dissimilar (and so are measured DCR values, then). But each coil still measures the same inductance of 2.25H when tested separately.

 

[Fiesta Red]

It can't be a new ~current~ pickup because the sticker is wrong.... (edit)

Yours has the way old pre-2002 style sticker on the bottom.

Does the sticker look hinkey to anyone?

 

[Mincer]

There are a few things here- no model card in the box, weird sticker, and short lead. Maybe an OEM model shipped to a company that later sold it.

 

[pinkymb]

There are a few things here- no model card in the box, weird sticker, and short lead. Maybe an OEM model shipped to a company that later sold it.

I suspect something like this might be the case.

 

[pinkymb]

Does the sticker look hinkey to anyone?

On close inspection it looks a bit uneven around edges.

 

[switchman]

Sticker does look cut by hand and printed or typed. Usually the older ones have the rounded corners and a blue ink stamp. I found another example online that looked similar with full packaging but I didn't save it

 

[pinkymb]

Oh well do I feel like a dummy. I just thought to search for 59 PAF on Ali Express and look what showed up!



And from reading the reviews customers were saying they both come with the same label and the bridge measures 8.1k.

Luckily I only paid about £55 about a year ago, so I haven't lost that much money. But too much time has passed for eBay to do anything about a return or refund I imagine. Ah well.

Thanks everyone for the input. I'm off to find a neck pickup for this build! Thought I should post this here to show what cheap knockoffs look like.