Blank back pickup

[gush]

There is a guy on reverb selling a "blank back pickup". I've never heard of these.
Looks like 8.4k/4.2k resistance .

I'm not interested in buying it but I'm just curious what this pickup is?

 

[Tosca]

There is a guy on reverb selling a "blank back pickup". I've never heard of these.
Looks like 8.4k/4.2k resistance .

I'm not interested in buying it but I'm just curious what this pickup is?

Could he mean “Black Back”?
Are they Seymour Duncan pickups?

 

[Tosca]

Never mind...I think I found it on Reverb...he’s claiming they are early PRS pickups. I never heard of “Blank Backs”...but as most PRS pickups are identified by a sticker...they could be anything.

 

[dmatthews]

I think he just means there's no sticker saying HFS.
So, the back is blank.
Just a guess.

 

[gush]

Read his description. He says blank backs came after t and b but before white or black stickers.

8.4/4.2 is not consistent with HFS or VB.

I think he's full of it.

 

[Collywobbles]

A blank-back is a Standard Treble or Standard Bass pickup from around mid-87 to (approx.) mid 1990. The reading is fine – the spec was 8.5K bass and 11K treble. So as described it’s probably a late 80s Standard Bass pickup. But the white paper labels can fall off so it's possibly something else with a similar reading.


By way of history

The very first factory guitars from 1985 feature pickups that were stamped 7 on the base plate (treble) and 8 (bass). I used to own this one.

The 7 & 8 stamps swapped to become T and B (treble, and bass), which ran until probably mi-87 or a bit later. Two versions: V1 below, identical to the 7 and 8 (above).

Second version (this is a B)

Then the stamping was stopped after the pickups were structurally modified to have two non-magnetic poles on the T pickup high E and B. This is a mid '88 blank-back bass pickup.

After that (and probably as they started making lots of other pickup types) they swapped to identifying them again with white labels. Never owned one of those, so no picture.

Specs:

 

[gush]

A blank-back is a Standard Treble or Standard Bass pickup from around mid-87 to (approx.) mid 1990. The reading is fine – the spec was 8.5K bass and 11K treble. So as described it’s probably a late 80s Standard Bass pickup. But the white paper labels can fall off so it's possibly something else with a similar reading.


By way of history

The very first factory guitars from 1985 feature pickups that were stamped 7 on the base plate (treble) and 8 (bass). I used to own this one.

The 7 & 8 stamps swapped to become T and B (treble, and bass), which ran until probably mi-87 or a bit later. Two versions: V1 below, identical to the 7 and 8 (above).

Second version (this is a B)

Then the stamping was stopped after the pickups were structurally modified to have two non-magnetic poles on the T pickup high E and B. This is a mid '88 blank-back bass pickup.

After that (and probably as they started making lots of other pickup types) they swapped to identifying them again with white labels. Never owned one of those, so no picture.

Specs:

Good to know. I didn't realize they made T and Bs with no labels at all. Makes sense that it would be a "B" pickup.

I had a really old set of HFS/VB pickups a while back. Labels had fallen off but you could still make out that there wereabels on them at one time.

 

[BMiller]

In my 91 CU24, when I pulled the pickups, one of the paper labels had dried up and fallen off. Instead of taping it on, I just left the paper label in the cavity. I'd have to dig through old pics to find some more details.

 

[Huggy Love]

Pics or they came out of a Hello Kitty.