Vintage pickups

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pushedcrayon1

pushedcrayon1

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I'm truly curious here,

Other than being old, how come these pickups demand major cash? I see some old pickups (I'm talking 50-60s) going for hundreds, if not thousands, each!

I know they are old, and probably rare, but are they just the greatest paf pickups ever? Or are people paying the premium just to have vintage correct parts?

Like I said, I am truly curious here, not trying to start any arguments.

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Re: Vintage pickups

I think the thinking is: "I'm getting something extraordinarily rare that was used on all the famous recordings I love that influenced me to play guitar in the first place, and they don't make 'em like this anymore because they can't - some of the materials are even banned" ... all the while ignoring the fact that back then it was a brand new art/science, things were managed/monitored manually and the people doing the manufacturing weren't all the sharpest knives in the drawer and didn't have the strictest rules to follow, only some very loose guidelines, so two pickups that should have been identical could actually be off by a tolerance of who-knows~30-40% or more. Magnets of completely different types were thrown in, coils were wound 'until full' whatever that means. So... piece of history, or piece of...
 
Re: Vintage pickups

Scarcity is one. Also the fact that such iconic music was made with them (surely they are one of the main ingredients!). Owning the same type and year of pickup that your musical hero used keeps the vintage pickup market running. 70's strats and 70s strat pickups, which were derided for years as being terribly inferior to their 60s and 50's versions, are huge on the vintage market.
 
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Demand and supply......purely and simply.

Demand due to the pickups being part of recorded history, and the fact we look back rather than forward mostly.
Demand due to the fact that despite all the research done on materials and methods, modern clones never quite sound the same.

Supply due to the fact that there are a LOT more players out there now, most of them wanting old pickups - as we mostly seem to look backward tonally.
Supply due to the fact that the most in-demand pickups were only ever produced for instruments sold, and there were very few made over a small portion of time.

As to 'the greatest PAF ever'......the late 50's into perhaps 61 are the ONLY PAF ever. Anything else is not a PAF
 
Re: Vintage pickups

Hello,
If someone is searching for vintage sound, it wasn't in guitars or pickups, it was in the recording studio. Has anyone heard THAT tone at a concert, or a live recording.
One thing the current PAF mania did do was give us consistency, in the modern copies of mystical pickups.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

pushedcrayon1 said:
Other than being old, how come these pickups demand major cash? are they just the greatest paf pickups ever? Or are people paying the premium just to have vintage correct parts?
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IMHO, the P.T. Barnum quote about one every minute is the right answer. ;)
 
Re: Vintage pickups

I can understand paying $1000+ for authentic PAFs, regardless of how they sound. I might not even put the set into a guitar. It's the fact that they are historically significant, like a souvenir or sorts. It will hold, or increase in value, for as long as rock music remains popular.

What I can't understand is paying $550 for a pair of ThroBaks. That's the real WTF. SD Seth Lovers, or even Classic 57's or Burstbuckers, are PAF spec pickups. An old, actual PAF is valuable because it is an old, actual PAF. A modern replica is neither old, nor an actual PAF. Spending more than absolutely necessary to get a modern spec PAF is a huge waste of cash.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

People like to invest in cool stuff. Seen that happen before.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

I appreciate all the input guys, just trying to wrap my mind around the price tag I guess

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Re: Vintage pickups

thanaton said:
I can understand paying $1000+ for authentic PAFs, regardless of how they sound. I might not even put the set into a guitar. It's the fact that they are historically significant, like a souvenir or sorts. It will hold, or increase in value, for as long as rock music remains popular.

What I can't understand is paying $550 for a pair of ThroBaks. That's the real WTF. SD Seth Lovers, or even Classic 57's or Burstbuckers, are PAF spec pickups. An old, actual PAF is valuable because it is an old, actual PAF. A modern replica is neither old, nor an actual PAF. Spending more than absolutely necessary to get a modern spec PAF is a huge waste of cash.
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These days, I'm leaning the other way. When a winder has done the research to understand which factors matter in the sound and to what degree and has sourced the best or correct materials and even had to do their own tooling when necessary to get it right, there is a cost there. If the results are there, consistent and usable, I will pay money for it. I won't pay for it just because it's old.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

beaubrummels said:
These days, I'm leaning the other way. When a winder has done the research to understand which factors matter in the sound and to what degree and has sourced the best or correct materials and even had to do their own tooling when necessary to get it right, there is a cost there. If the results are there, consistent and usable, I will pay money for it. I won't pay for it just because it's old.
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Are you saying the results aren't there with a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover? What is it lacking, in your opinion?
 
Re: Vintage pickups

thanaton said:
Are you saying the results aren't there with a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover? What is it lacking, in your opinion?
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You made a false leap there. I never said results aren't there with a Seth Lover. I have a pair of Seth's, use them and love them when I need that sound. Seymour is one of the guys who did his research.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

beaubrummels said:
You made a false leap there. I never said results aren't there with a Seth Lover. I have a pair of Seth's, use them and love them when I need that sound. Seymour is one of the guys who did his research.
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It sounds like you're trying to have it both ways. You said:

When a winder has done the research to understand which factors matter in the sound and to what degree and has sourced the best or correct materials and even had to do their own tooling when necessary to get it right, there is a cost there. If the results are there, consistent and usable, I will pay money for it.
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If Seth Lovers are perfect as is, what more stands to be improved upon in terms of how they sound? What results are you referring to, if not audible results?

Look, I appreciate maybe Seth Lovers don't use exactly the right formulation of plastic for the bobbins, or some other arcane difference, but nobody is going to say, with a straight face, that Seth Lovers don't produce perfectly vintage sounding PAF tones.
 
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Re: Vintage pickups

Arcane??

Like the wind where almost every if not every PAF has different strength coils.....or different resonant peak coils. Or where the patterns don't quite match what was produced historically. Its these tonal shift inducing 'arcane' differences that take PAF-like into PAF clone territory.

You haven't visited my link have you??

Just to make it clear.....I never knock any pickups nor people who like them. But if we're being accurate, then we have to be accurate.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

thanaton said:
It sounds like you're trying to have it both ways. You said:

If Seth Lovers are perfect as is, what more stands to be improved upon in terms of how they sound? What results are you referring to, if not audible results?

Look, I appreciate maybe Seth Lovers don't use exactly the right formulation of plastic for the bobbins, or some other arcane difference, but nobody is going to say, with a straight face, that Seth Lovers don't produce perfect PAF tones.
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What are you going on about? I've never said Duncan Seth's need improvement. Never in this, or any other thread. I did not even bring up Seth's in this thread. Only you did. Where are you getting this 'have it both ways' dialog from?

For the record, in my opinion, Seymour's pickups that are designed to replicate or replace older model pickups rank exactly among those I was talking about - Seymour did his research into what elements factor into the sound, his products got the results I was after and I have paid money for those pickups.

(Sounds like you've completely made up a hidden dialog in your head that didn't come from me, but are somehow trying to hold me accountable for it. If you alone are going to be providing yet a third voice to the conversation, I think you can answer your own posts from now on. :boggled::sigh: )
 
Re: Vintage pickups

thanaton said:
I can understand paying $1000+ for authentic PAFs, regardless of how they sound...they are historically significant...

What I can't understand is paying $550 for a pair of ThroBaks. That's the real WTF. SD Seth Lovers, or even Classic 57's or Burstbuckers, are PAF spec pickups.
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I agree with your first sentiment, much like people would buy other 50s Fender and Gibson gear even if not one of the holy grail or pristine or otherwise ideal examples of their peers. Your second position, well first I wouldn't state it so harshly, these other pickup makers have the right to charge what they want, and earn whatever living for their craft. With Throbak for example, you're paying for the guy's obsession. The countless unpaid hours of research. Those are investment hours and clearly he expects to be paid for that.

But I'll agree with you again, that I wouldn't pay that either. I just wouldn't put the list you made up against the Throbaks as the counter. Instead I would put them up against a Custom Shop order, Leesona wound, mismatch coils, Antiquity magnet, or fully gaussed rough cast magnet, those sorts of things.

If PAF's were like snowflakes, then it would make sense that a Seth Lover can't please everybody, it's only one snowflake. Again, I would take an MJ/Leesona wound Custom Shop pickup over a Throbak for value. But this is why you have some guys challenging you saying that the Seth or 57 Classic, Burstbucker, etc are all some form of acceptable surrogate to Throbak. The Seth has the Leesona but doesn't have mismatched coils. The Gibsons have matched or unmatched coils but they don't have the Leesona. Outside of the Custom Shop, Throbak has a feature set list that is unique to him, so he can charge whatever he wants. It's not a guarantee of a successful business model, but I don't begrudge him for it, nor anyone who pays his price.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

The important thing to me is to keep my eye on the positive: we live in a world of incredible choice for guitarists. I can buy a real PAF (granted, for a buttload of money) from anywhere in the world, or any number of boutique replicas custom made to my specs, or I can spend a reasonable amount of money on a fantastic consumer product like the Seth Lover. And I can even get them used cheaper on the net.
 
Re: Vintage pickups

frankfalbo said:
With Throbak for example, you're paying for the guy's obsession.
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That sums it up perfectly, and that's what I'm saying is WTF. You might assert that something the ThroBak does that the Seth Lover does not do makes a difference in how the pickups perform, but it's really just an assertion. Nobody installs Seth Lovers into a guitar and says to, "oooh, I can hear the inauthentic steel 1008 pole pieces, too much carbon!". If Seth Lovers, or even Burstbuckers, left something to be desired, then you'd have a case for pairing performance and the higher cost, but at this rate, you're talking about higher costs with no proven benefits to performance, which the definition of wasting money. You're paying more for authenticity, when the thing is question is, and always will be, inherently inauthentic.
 
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