Identifying 70s DiMarzios?

imalrightjack

Can anybody help me with narrowing down what I understand are DiMarzio pickups?  I thought Super Distortions and one of our chaps on here (@SteveRobinson) thought, as they're four-conductor (three coloured cables and a shielded one), thought they might be dual sounds.  However, the rating of them comes out (when using a multimeter on tip-sleeve of a cable) shows around 8.5k each.

Any DiMarzio experts know what they might be?  The base plates aren't original, I believe, which I understand isn't uncommon.

sweepy

They look like Mighty Mites and not DiMarzio as there are no holes in the bobbins

webrthomson

Super Distortions would be ~14K.

Calling @TheGuitarWeasel

imalrightjack

sweepy said:

They look like Mighty Mites and not DiMarzio as there are no holes in the bobbins

@sweepy How long have they been in production? These have been in since the eighties at latest. 

sweepy

Mighty Mites we’re around from the 70’s I had them on my Kawaii and other guitars, DiMarzio pickups always have had holes in the top of rhe bobbins

Alegree

All dimazrios have dimarzio stamped on the baseplates.
Flip them over, they may even have a DP number that tells you the model.

imalrightjack

I think, @Alegree, that Steve will confirm they're not stamped.

@Sweepy - are they well though-of pickups?  Toying with switching them anyway but keen to know what it has.  Not that they don't sound good, it's that eternal quest of making things as good as they can be...

sweepy

The old Mighty Mite pickups were pretty good and along with DiMarzio pioneered the aftermarket pickup replacement craze

https://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/showthread.php?262408-Information-on-a-vintage-Mighty-Mite

WezV

Alegree said:

All dimazrios have dimarzio stamped on the baseplates.
Flip them over, they may even have a DP number that tells you the model.

Some very early ones don’t have stamps.  The stamp changed a few times, I am sure “Made in USA” was added later and there was an obvious font change

they would have square feet, DP numbers came much later.


there were a few makers doing similar at the time, brain says Schaller are another possibility but I don’t totally trust that memory

SteveRobinson

The baseplates are not stamped. I assumed the baseplates had been replaced as they bobbins were loose and maple spacers missing. 

The reason I thought they were DiMarzio is the 3 conductor cable with the loose braid which is pretty typical of early DiMarzio pickups but from teh images linked to above it looks as if Mighty Mite did too?

@ICBM is pretty knowledgeable about this stuff.

imalrightjack

They look very much like Mighty Mite 1400s, although not sure about the output. Very close. 

guitars4you

Mighty Mite 1300 humbuckers had such pole pieces and a 3 conductor + shielding and a similar reading ????? - but appropriate markings on the plate

https://reverb.com/item/1463933-vintage-mighty-mite-mfg-1400-humbucker-pickup-usa-screamer-neck-bridge-8-9-ohms-van-halen-hex-poles

imalrightjack

@guitars4you Exactly what I thought (they're 1400s).

impmann

Another curve-ball... Double Eagle made some very similar pickups in the mid 80s. These were made in the far east to a US design and sold in US (and some EU shops). These were definitely three conductor plus shield (I bought one new from Rokas in London in mid 1986) and sounded pretty good. They too had the double cream bobbins, allen head screws and no holes.

guitars4you

impmann said:

Another curve-ball... Double Eagle made some very similar pickups in the mid 80s. These were made in the far east to a US design and sold in US (and some EU shops). These were definitely three conductor plus shield (I bought one new from Rokas in London in mid 1986) and sounded pretty good. They too had the double cream bobbins, allen head screws and no holes.

that was the name I was thinking of but couldn't remember it - I had a double barreled name on the tip of my tongue - knew it wasn't Velvet Hammer, but couldn't recall it - Good find from the back of the cupboard @impmann

sweepy

Velvet Hammer, bloody hell thats a blast from the past, iirc Holdsworth used them for awhile 

WezV

WezV said:

there were a few makers doing similar at the time, brain says Schaller are another possibility but I don’t totally trust that memory

i think it was gotoh i was thinking of, but a quick search says there super distortion style was 11k and also have holes in the bobbins

guitars4you

sweepy said:

Velvet Hammer, bloody hell thats a blast from the past, iirc Holdsworth used them for awhile 

related to MC Hammer I think !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

guitars4you

sweepy said:

Velvet Hammer, bloody hell thats a blast from the past, iirc Holdsworth used them for awhile 

Did not realise that EVH was a regular user of various Mighty Mite humbuckers

sweepy

EVH Old No1 had a PAF from an old 335 and no I didn’t jknow about his use of MM pickups

Alegree

WezV said:

Alegree said:

All dimazrios have dimarzio stamped on the baseplates.
Flip them over, they may even have a DP number that tells you the model.

Some very early ones don’t have stamps.  The stamp changed a few times, I am sure “Made in USA” was added later and there was an obvious font change

they would have square feet, DP numbers came much later.


there were a few makers doing similar at the time, brain says Schaller are another possibility but I don’t totally trust that memory

I'm just relaying  what Dimarzio support told me when I was trying to ID some old pickups I suspected of being Dimarzios.