I see you mentioned you know what pickup was originally put in the 5150. Are you willing to share that info? I’d love to know!
Yes I will tell you but before I will try and explain why it has never been simple to trust the available information.
Ed in the early days didn't want people to know what he used or even who made it. He would often lie about gear to throw people off knowing .
He also prevented builders from making replicas of the things they supplied to him or even confirming what they did.
Seymour Duncan made a few custom wound pickups for him and these are all still available . The EVH the Frankie the custom and the custom custom are all Ed pickups. The EVH ( evenly voiced Harmonics
) was modelled after a paf rewind and never authorised hence the silly name . The custom was in an ad in the late 70s mentioning that Ed used it and that was a problem. The custom custom never mentioned Ed anywhere and was still the pickup that Ed wanted in the neck position of the Music Man even after the Dimarzio was custom-built. The Frankie is a SD built hand wound Custom custom marketed as an EVH . The Custom was a take on a ceramic distortion pickup typical of the late 70s.
Next problem Paul Unkert (who did the headstock conversion) says it left the factory with a SD59. So the first thing I had to prove is "How many pickups had 5150 ever had" I did this with available pictures. The pickup in 5150 earliest photos show the long legs bent up the sides of the rout to get the right hight and new holes drilled for the screws. This is the useful part as they are not straight so you have something to determine that this is the same black pickup that you'r looking at in later pictures. So the three black pickups that have been rumoured to be in 5150 are the 59 , JB, and the Custom custom. Pictures conclude that only one black pickup was ever in there. I can rule out the 59 as it always at the time came in two pole with paper tape and the 5150 had cloth and four pole. I next ruled out the JB because it just didn't sound like one when I played it and I've owned a lot or JBs over the years. I originally concluded that that leaves the CC as it sounds right and is virtually the same speck as the Wolfgang pickup that was a direct copy of it. Not that simple Larry DiMarzio wrote an article that says when they made the pickups for the MM that it was a JB with one broken coil. But it was Steve that did the examination and was it stickered ? If it wasn't the CC why is the copy a CC clone? Next I had a conversation with the guy that has the pickup now and he confirmed that it was broken and one coil was 8k on the other 160k alnico 5 . Steve was right it is a broken JB . The incident that caused it was the high E got stuck in the coil and when he pulled it out it sounded different and Ed preferred it. This is also the time when the white gaff tape was added to prevent it from reoccurring .
So is the Wolfgang the same as the CC ? not really but the on paper speck is. The WG is a copy of the broken JB and indeed is a it more dynamic than the CC and a lot different to a stock JB .
I suspect this is not that useful as the closest and IMO best sounding Ed pickup is the PV version even though the EVH one is supposed to be the exact same design. BUT the PV one is alnico 5 and the EVH 2. The one in 5150 now is a PV WG and Ed liked it so much that Jim got to keep the original and still has it.
