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Post subject: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 5:13 pm
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So my brother gave me this pickguard that came from a fender strat..and I wanted to know if this was a custom built strat or if any strat came with a single humbucker and volume knob. Thanks.
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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:24 pm
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That looks like something from a Tom Delonge Strat.

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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:26 pm
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Retroverbial wrote:
That looks like something from a Tom Delonge Strat.

Arjay


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Though the humbucker is different.

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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:36 pm
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Thanks for the help so far, I recently learned of something else called a 'Fender Straight Six' but they seem pretty rare, so I kind of doubt it's that. All of the pickguards on those seemed to be white and not sparkle. Sort of a mystery.


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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:13 pm
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AFAIK, the Tom Delonge used a white mother-of-pearl pickguard configured with a single humbucker and a volume control only. I believe the Straight Six had a single-ply black pickguard.

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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:37 pm
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That's not a DeLonge or Straight Six pickguard, nor a Fender USA/MIM pickguard of any kind.

For uncovered humbuckers, Fender shapes the pickup opening to closely match the shape of the pickup, like this Straight Six:

Image

The pickup opening on Jolivz' pickguard has squarer corners, designed to allow the use of a covered humbucker. While Fender has used covered humbuckers and squarer-corner openings on some Strats (like the Blacktop Strats), those have been dual humbuckers or HSS's (so more than one pickup opening), plus those have had selector switches and multiple knobs.

Straight Sixes had 3-ply plain white (white/black/white) guards, not pearloid like that one (plus the bottom layer was white, not black like that one). DeLonges were pearloid, but besides the wrong pickup opening and the wrong pickup for a DeLonge, the Delonge pickguard was 4-ply (pearloid/white/black/white, like all Fender pearloid guards), so the bottom layer should be white not black.

The Squier DeLonge had a single-ply guard in either white or black, and also had the "fitted" pickup opening (rounder corners).

I suppose there's a chance there was an obscure Fender Japan, MIK, MII, MIC Strat with a pickguard like that, but that one didn't come out of any factory that Fender owns.


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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:18 am
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Was this topic about the pickup? That's not Fender either. Fenders have the Fender logo stamped into the baseplate (the Blacktop humbuckers have a diamond shaped logo from whatever company builds them for Fender).

Fender has used a couple of different Duncan humbuckers -- those all have "Seymour Duncan" stamped into the base and silkscreened on top of one of the coils.

All of the humbuckers Fender uses have short mounting legs. That one has long legs.

Other than the vintage original Wide Range humbuckers, all the 'buckers Fender has used have plastic insulation surrounding the lead wires, not braided metal.

That one looks pretty generic -- most major manufacturers are proud enough to put some sort of markings on their humbuckers. It may sound good or great -- I don't mean "generic" in a particularly negative way. But it's not anything Fender has used. (It might actually be some sort of Gibson-made pickup -- some of those only have a decal on the bottomplate that sometimes flakes or peels off, but I don't see any traces of that, and the pic showing the top of the pickup is blurry enough that I can't see the holes on the coils well enough to see if they're Gibson style.)

The potentiometer doesn't look like anything Fender has used either.

I haven't meant any of this in a negative or dismissive way. That's a good looking guard and the pickup may sound great -- it's just none of it is stock Fender.


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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:58 am
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I agree with the last statement, thanks for the research and help. I think someone took a fender body and slapped that pickguard on it, he did buy the guitar used. Why they would do that, though, I'll never know.


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Post subject: Re: I need help trying to identify this pickup..
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:16 pm
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jolivz wrote:
I agree with the last statement, thanks for the research and help. I think someone took a fender body and slapped that pickguard on it, he did buy the guitar used. Why they would do that, though, I'll never know.


One of the genius things about Fender designs is how easily they can be customized to the individual player's wants & needs. The single-humbucker format is pretty popular, especially in hard-rock. Van Halen used a single-humbucker homebuilt Strat for his first two albums (at some point he added a neck pickup, but that was just to confuse people -- the wires were never connected so it was purely for looks). But guitars with a single pickup in the bridge position goes back to the '50s -- Fender Esquires and Gibson LP Juniors.

While most of us treasure the variety of sounds we can get from multi-pickup guitars with multi-controls, a lot of rockers only use the bridge pickup and don't use the tone controls, so a barebones 1 pickup/1 knob setup works well for them.


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