They're all at it...

[Spence]

Here's someone else selling 'handwound' pickups for peanuts.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=220038098329

I hope this sort of stupidity stops soon as it will undermine the work, effort and value we put into our stuff.

[David Schwab]

Here's someone else selling 'handwound' pickups for peanuts.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=220038098329

I hope this sort of stupidity stops soon as it will undermine the work, effort and value we put into our stuff.

It went for $37.00 for a set! That's $18.5 a pickup...

What's the cheapest someone can put a humbucker together as far as parts?

Using the Stew-Mac kits as a rubric, you spend $21.70 for parts and sell the pickups at a loss of $3.20! And that doesn't count labor!

Boy, that's good business! Crazy!

He can't keep doing that for long... probably thought they would sell for more.

[Spence]

I just think he didn't make them. They have to be GFS or something. It never ceases to amaze me how people latch on to something good and then ruin it. Maybe we should 'invent' some new term or technique, put it around a bit and see who starts talking about it in their sales blurb.

[DoctorX]

how about....

"offering neo vintage humbuckers with chronosynclastic infundibulum magnetic field texturing"

"vortex layered winding co-capacitance structure"

"60 cycle field pre-stressed pole pieces"

(I'm starting to like this)

"magnetic field tensor windings"

I need a bigger shovel.....

DoctorX

[Sock Puppet]

"offering neo vintage humbuckers with chronosynclastic infundibulum magnetic field texturing"

"vortex layered winding co-capacitance structure"

"60 cycle field pre-stressed pole pieces"

(I'm starting to like this)

"magnetic field tensor windings"

I need a bigger shovel.....

DoctorX

Lots of shovels over at http://www.lacemusic.com/electric_pi...ic_pickups.php
- you sound like you've worked there

S.

[mick]

Could be my eyes but it doesn't look like PE on the cream coil ?

[madialex]

YUP

I just think he didn't make them. They have to be GFS or something. It never ceases to amaze me how people latch on to something good and then ruin it. Maybe we should 'invent' some new term or technique, put it around a bit and see who starts talking about it in their sales blurb.

Just like when Barden started making pickups again someone said next thing you would see was people selling them under the sales pitch of being original old stock or pre new winds, HAHAHAHAHAHA, well it has come to fruition. I saw a set the other day listed as the old stock, get that great pre new wind tone, LOLOLOLOLOLOl.... The shit never stops.. Some people kill me with it.. And yes it looks like poly wire to me, red color. Maybe the way the pic is but I doubt it. If he is selling someone else's stuff he should be shot on sight but it will bite him in the ass eventually.

I think adding in that the magnets were charged with a genuine flux capacitor used in the original back to future movie car and that the winding speed had to be exactly 88Mph would help too. Then you could add in that the magnets were treated in liquid nitrogen, dropped and shattered and reformed in a secret process that makes them oooze vintage tone. Great thread guys...

[ken]

I think he didn't actually make those, he probably bought them and just wanted to sell 'em off.

He probably switches pickups in his guitars quicker than he changes his underwear.

Ken

[Possum]

weirdness....

If you go look at what he sells, its junk books and crap tools. It looks like this is his first attempt at selling pickups on Ebay, I'm betting he'll quit why he's ahead, as no one is buying for serious uses it looks like. Basically he gave his pickups away.

[Mark Hammer]

A parable....

When I was an undergraduate, once a month I would hit the current periodicals section in the main library, and work my way through anything and every journal that was of relevance to my areas of study. I wouldn't read the journals, but I would go through the table of contents, and often read abstracts, noting where I was likely to find what sorts of information, and of what quality. It didn't take long to recognize that what came out in journals issued 3 times a year, with maybe 4-6 articles per issue, each of them easily 30 pages or more, was more deserving of my attention than what appeared in a journal coming out times a year, with upwards of 40 articles per issue, none of them longer than maybe 5 pages. I learned to recognize the buzzwords that would indicate a hot topic in research, and who the major names were. When it came time to write papers, I knew exactly where to look for papers to read.

When electronic databases became available 15 years later, they were a godsend, permitting me to do my monthly search in a seated position without enduring neckstrain, and allowing me to save and print the best of what I had stumbled across. My university students had access to the same databases, but since everything presented in 12pt Times Roman looks the same, and since few if any of them had actually ever browsed through the journals in the stacks, they had absolutely no context within which to judge what they stumbled across. As a consequence, they would hand in papers, and their references in essays would put a Nobel prize-winner's ground-breaking work alongside an undergraduate honours thesis submitted to a 3rd tier journal that published anything and everything submited to them without critical review. The students had absolutely no idea about how to judge the force of the support they believed they were presenting for their arguments, going only on the basis of the fact that they had stumbled across it in the database, and that it looked to be about the same stuff as the other things they had stumbled across.

Why am I telling you this? Because EVERYTHING looks good on the net. Any doofus, with the barest of skills can buy a cheap digital camera, take pictures, download web-site construction software or get it off a magazine cover CD, throw up a commercial website, and offer stuff for sale, without anyone ever knowing that the "business" is really a 22 year-old guy who has 3 years experience with a hobby during their spare time, and operated as a one-person "business" out of their parents' basement, with 4 younger siblings and a pesky cat getting in the way all the time.

That person is not trying to lie to you, but with only superficial electronic information available, and being at the mercy of all the slick language and graphics they can muster, you have absolutely no way of telling the difference between a product source you can depend on, and one you should be skeptical of for the time being. You are in exactly the same position as my students who see a snazzy title on the screen, quite apart from the company that article keeps in the actual print journal it appeared in, and have no basis for deciding (with solid evidence) that it is somehow better or less trustworthy than another.

The guy this thread started out talking about, is certainly not trying to make you believe that he is Abigail Ybarra or Seth Lover or Lindy Fralin. But if you went to Lindy Fralin's site (http://www.fralinpickups.com/), or Jason Lollar's site (http://www.lollarguitars.com/) or Dave Stephens' site (http://www.sdpickups.com/) or Kent Armstrong's site (http://www.kentarmstrong.com/) or Bill Lawrence's site (http://www.billlawrence.com/), how the hell could you tell whose product is better or worse or more to your liking or more reliable, and how would you tell them apart from any of a zillion folks pushing product on e-bay?

I'm not casting aspertions on anyone at all. What I'm trying to say is that the web, and web-based sales of products via images and soundclips, places everyone in the same position as my students looking for articles. If you have no contextual information, or background knowledge, how on earth do you judge, and how does the vendor (who we will presume is enthusiastic and sincere) convey - without harming their sales - that they are just some small-time outfit taking a stab at making a bit of money from something they do? If you make a couple of pedals or pickups for some friends, and sell by word of mouth, they understand what they are buying and who is selling it. If you have a website or e-bay ad, instantly you get put on the same pedestal as the most trusted names in the business, without necessarily trying to.

[mick]

How would you tell them apart ? By using your common sense and doing your research ,judging by the price he got for them it looks like most people did.

Mick

[David Schwab]

Lots of shovels over at http://www.lacemusic.com/electric_pi...ic_pickups.php
- you sound like you've worked there

Yeah, well Don Lace actually knew what he was doing coil and flux wise. It doesn't mean he made great sounding pickups, but he knew his stuff otherwise. His real business was solenoids. He's got a lot of patents...

The transsensor pickup was designed by the guy that makes Villex pickups.

Personally I don't care for Lace Sensors even a tiny bit.

[Ruel]

Next thing you know, the guy will claim that his pickups have Jimi Hendrix's DNA. He put a lock of Jimi's hair in the wax bath when he potted the pickups. That gives it its vintage tone.

[David Schwab]

Next thing you know, the guy will claim that his pickups have Jimi Hendrix's DNA. He put a lock of Jimi's hair in the wax bath when he potted the pickups. That gives it its vintage tone.

You mean like this?

"SEVEN signature tones that changed the world forever."



Who needs the same pickups... or guitar even... when you have "TWO of our AudioDNA™ DSP chips"

(I'm actually curious about trying one of these out...)

[Possum]

educating the public

yeh there's alot of dweebs out there selling pickups and players can't tell because they know nothing about pickups and are suckers for someone with alot of gabby bullshit and outrageous claims. Personally I never tell a customer my pickups are better than anybody else's and never say these are the BEST of anything. You set a trap for yourself if you do that. Its the main reason I put sound clips up of everything I make and I personally play my own guitar through my own amp and don't use any fucking rack mount crap to alter the tone and skew the sound clips to sounding better than the pickups really are. I've heard sound clips before of some guys playing marshall stacks with 22 pedals and 35 effects and you just have no idea what the pickups actually sound like. Are you in the business of SELLING, or in the business of MAKING GOOD PICKUPS. If you're in the business of selling then most of your customers are going to be one shot deals, they won't come back if you give them expectations that exceed the product. If you're in the business of making good sounding pickups then your customers will come back for other pickups you make. Unfortunately this kinda comes down to are you a craftsman or a dealer. Is it more important how many pickups you sell or how many super happy customers do you have. I'm trying to find the middle road because I sure ain't making money at this stuff......