Japan PAF's fetch $600 easy ( Dry Z's by Greco)

[SteveJ]

Possum - Your probably right on the wire. Never say never.

Pupoholic - I don't think your Dry Z's have ceramic magnets.

I may have made a confusing statement on the magnet so I edited my previous post. The mid to high end Japanese pickups that I have seen have alnico magnets. The Screamin' pickups are the lower end pup and they have ceramic magnets. I don't know what grade are the higher end pups but I do know that some use alnico 3 and 8. The Screamin' pups that I have had varied a bit but there is occasionally one here and there that sound great with ceramic. Usually a swap to alnico will put it closer into PAF territory. All of the older alnico magnets I have seen in these are rough cast on side and sometimes on both, or pitted a bit on the other side. Smooth on the edges if it makes a difference.

[pupoholic]

HA! So, you did take them apart?
There is an unwarranted bias against ceramic magnets, I have two types of tele blade pickups and I never tell the players they're ceramic powered and they love them. Maybe I should tell them its black alnico

no-no-no can't take em apart -- too expensive! -- just used a ( Gauss meter ) they were a little lower then full 5's -- possibly a little intentional degauss or they are A-4's???

Yes Blades sound good- with ceramic -

I learned from Jeff L_ace that allot of pup designers have used metals to load the ceramic up - so they can get it to "think" / "read" like alnico -- it almost works perfect -

thick Blades sometimes bug me - they seem to read too much string and then blur - I always wondered if thats why Gibson notched out those Old CC's? -- or why BL uses such thin blades?