Greco 'Double Trick'ed = Yet Another MIJ 'Curve Ball'

[guitar hiro]

So, I'm searching my parts bins looking for a pickup set to put into my Bacchus BLP-STD FM Relic as I had taken out the Dry Z set that I sold on Reverb a year ago that was in the guitar.
I wanted a pickup set with covers that matched the patina on the hardware that is already on the Bacchus.
I decided to use a set of Greco 'Double Trick' pickups that I removed from a 1982 EG many years ago.
The problem however is the covers on the Double Trick set didn't match the patina of the hardware on the Bacchus.
I have covers from a 1980 set of Greco UDs that were perfect so, I decided to do a quick changeout of covers. Easy stuff.

So, I get the original covers off of the Double Trick set and WTF am I looking at?
The bridge pickup has exactly what I'm expecting; a nice silver Alnico magnet.
But the neck pickup has a coal black ceramic/ferrite magnet. WTF?
I looked at both magnets under different lighting conditions and all I'm seeing is one silver magnet and one coal black magnet.

Just another CRAZY 'curve ball' from the MIJs ...................... my head is still spinning ........

 

[guitar hiro]

There are two possible scenarios that are the most likely as to why the neck pickup of this 1982 Double Trick pickup set has a coal black ceramic magnet.
(1) the pickup is actually a Screamin 82 that someone at the factory carelessly placed a Double Trick sticker on the base.
(2) the pickup was supposed to be a Double Trick, as it is labeled on the base but someone at the factory carelessly placed a ceramic magnet in the pickup instead of an Alnico mag.
No matter the theory/my theory regarding the scenario on how this Double Trick set ended up with a miss-matched magnet set the neck pickup IMO certainly looks to have a ceramic/ferrite magnet, which is not correct for a Double Trick pickup.

I wanted to put this pickup set in my 2011 Bacchus BLS-STD FM Relic.
The last pickup set I had in the BLP was a 1981 Dry Z set with exposed double black bobbins. I have another Double Trick set with exposed black bobbins that I thought about using. I decided to go with covers this time instead of the no cover/open bobbin look.

I also wanted the covers for these pickups to have the same/similar patina as the other hardware on the BLP. The tail piece is a non-factory Gotoh GE101A in an aged finish. The bridge is also non-factory non-wired ABR type with non-plated brass saddles which is very similar to some older/vintage Tokai bridges.
I had a set of covers from a 1980 Greco EG with UD pickups that matched the patina on these parts so, I swapped out the covers. I also swapped out the original pickup rings and the BLP now has a set of M69 repros.

One item about a lot of Greco EG examples is the incorrect, non-vintage nature of the pickup and toggle routing aka the infamous 'worm hole' route. The worm route used for the majority of EGs allows for a shorter pickup lead for the neck pickup. If one wants to use a neck pickup from one of these old EGs in a LP type with a more 'correct' route set-up then that would involve (1) splicing in a bit of extra lead for the neck pickup lead, or (2) flipping the neck pickup. I decided to leave the neck pickup lead the original length, not adding any extra lead length but just flipping the pickup.

The mismatched magnet set of Double Trick pickups are now in the BLP-STD FM Relic and I'm actually a bit blown away by how they sound. I went from a matched set of Dry Z to this odd ball set of Double Tricks and I'll take the sonic signature of this bastardized Double Trick set, any day of the week, over the Dry Z set.
These Double Tricks sound amazing in the BLP, warts and all. And the bonus is I got to lemon oil the board again. Finally, a happy ending to a strange set of 42 year old vintage Maxon/Greco pickups.


Before, pictured with the 1981 Dry Z set, original without covers, that I sold two years ago



Now, with the 'strange' Double Trick set I removed from EG #2 1943, 1980 UD covers and M69 repro rings
Weight now sits at 8 lb. - 9.9 oz.



As a side note:
I believe a current TF member purchased the 1982 EG #2 1943 from me many years ago, without the DT pickups

 

[jimmypringles]

what's the difference between the dry z's and the double tricks? Is one hotter than the other?

 

[guitar hiro]

what's the difference between the dry z's and the double tricks? Is one hotter than the other?

I'm not sure about what I read but I believe I read somewhere that Dry Z has Alnico 3 but I have no idea if that is, or is not correct.
Also read somewhere that Double Trick have Alnico 5 and again, I have no idea if that is correct.

The DCR values for the mis-matched set I have in the BLP now with what I'm confident has a ceramic mag in the neck pickup reads 7.3 ohm for the neck and 7.2 ohm for the bridge.

The DCR values for another set of non-covered Double Tricks I have are 7.7 ohm for the neck and 7.3 ohm for the bridge.

All I know is that yesterday I played the BLP a lot with the mis-matched set of Double Trick pickups and I am just blown away at how great they sound in this guitar. All I can say is this pickup set will not be coming out of this guitar.
The Dry Z set I had in this guitar before didn't even come close and I have no explanation why that is because the Dry Z set sounded phenomenal in the guitar they were originally in from the factory.

Different pickups can sound completely different in different guitars.