Stringmaster pickup identification

[Jared Boyd]

Does anyone recognize these pickups? They are on a 1960 D8 Stringmaster I recently picked up. They have an odd sound (hard to explain) that I do not like, compared to my mid-70s Deluxe 8 which I believe to have factory pickups. They sound strange in general but specifically they do not get that increased single coil brightness and bite when blended towards the bridge pickup like my Deluxe 8 does. Thanks in advance.

[Stephen Cowell]

The blend pot appears to be wired correctly... it's supposed to short out the neck pickup.

All the wiring is suspect... I'd disconnect the pickups and verify their ohms. Also verify that the pairs are RWRP, the magnets should be N for one and S for the other. The hotter wound pickup should be toward the bridge, that is, the one with more ohms should be in the bridge position.

What about the other neck? Same type of pickups? Try as I might I can't make head nor tails of the blue script writing. Starts with a capital V?

[Dave Mudgett]

First - clearly the pickups and wiring are not original. The switch and wires are modern, and the pot looks like a modern pot. I can't be sure, but my bet is that the script is "Seymour" and these are Seymour Duncan Antiquity Stringmaster pickups - https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-pr ... ringmaster

It appears that Dan Campbell uses these in his Stringmaster re-creations - https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=413431 - and frankly, I think we're lucky that someone is winding 8-string Stringmaster-style pickups as an off-the-shelf item. But I don't know if these are true to the originals.

The DC resistance on the Duncan Stringmaster pickups, per the Duncan website, is 9.4K Ohms. Seems a bit hot to me, but I don't recall what my 50s Stringmaster pickups were wound to, and I don't have those steels anymore. But as Stephen suggests, I'd check the DCR. Hopefully someone can chime in here about the DCR of the originals. The Duncan website states how these pickups are wound: "The front-side pickup is wound “top going” and North polarity. The rear-side pickup is wound “top coming” and South polarity. When used in combination with each other the pickups will be hum-cancelling."

Anyway - if that guitar was sold to you as "all original", I think you have a case of outright misrepresentation. On a vintage instrument, any non-original parts should be disclosed. Nobody serious could argue that these electronics are original.

[Jared Boyd]

Thank you both, this helps a lot.

I did some research on the SD Antiquity pickups and found some photos of the underside of some, and they do in fact have that exact same sticker on them with the number and blue signature which apparently does read “Seymour”. So mystery solved on what the pickups are.

I haven’t pulled the other pickup plate yet to check what’s in there, but I highly suspect it will be the same.

I’m relatively new to electric instruments and don’t yet have a multimeter but I’m fairly handy with things like that so this will be a good excuse to get one and start learning.

This guitar was a used listing on GC and therefore didn’t have much info stating how much was original or not. So overall I don’t really have any beef about the fact these parts aren’t original. Would have been a lot nicer if they were, but oh well. I’m just happy to have a Stringmaster, and I really like that it’s the 24.5” scale. After getting the pickups and wiring all checked and straightened out if needed, I’ll be fully happy.