THE BULLFIGHTER: Bill Lawrence fights the VINT-AGE BULL

We all love real vintage instruments. Guitars, like a Stromburg, a John D'Angelico New Yorker, a 1950 Tele and a '56 Strat, a '58 Les Paul plus many others, have their respected place in the history of musical instruments.

Contrary to guitars, pickups do not improve with age.

Gurus, shamans and other members of the mystic circle claim they age magnets and coils, and that is a Big Bull. They claim the magnets in vintage pickups have lost some of their magnetism, and therefore, the pickups sound much sweeter. This is absolutely nonsense! Since the '40's, we use Alnico magnets which lose about one-half of a percent per one hundred years and not as Guru X quotes, "Alnico V has a half lifetime of approximately eighty years.

First, let's clarify what aging means. The Dictionary of Science and Technology by The Academic Press, 1992, defines aging (Materials Science) as, "Aging is the treatment of a material or product to stabilize or strengthen it by causing a coherent precipitate to form, increasing the permanency in a magnet or steaming of fabrics."

I have measured the magnets of numerous and beautifully sweet sounding vintage strat pickups, and they have not lost any magnetism. The coils had up to ten percent tolerance in DC resistance caused by the tolerance of the coilwire and by the difference in tension at the coilwinder. This will have no influence on the sound of the pickup. One thing all these good sounding pickups have in common is they all have less than four percent decay. Three to four percent is the expected amount of decay due to core loss of fully magnetized Alnico V magnets. Any additional decay is caused by minute shorts or even semi-shorts in the coil. These shorts are extremely hard to detect. However, in the past five years, I have developed a measuring technique to detect these shorts. If a coil is perfect, the pickup will sound great. A thousand turns, more or less, have very little effect on output or sound. There is no difference between layer or scatter wound, hand or machine wound coils; or if you use enamel, formvar or modern polyurethane coated wire, as long as the coil is perfectly wound and free of shorts. It is true that enamel or formvar coated wires are not as delicate as modern, thin polyurethane coated wires and are not as likely to cause internal shorts.

Internal Shorts are on the loose!

Recently, I've measured more than a hundred so-called Vintage Pickups, and there was the Bull! The amount of decay varied between five and fifty percent. Only a few of these pickups came close to the real thing.

Getting back to magnetism, a few percent loss of magnetism in a pickup is totally irrelevant, but is crucial in an ammeter where the magnetical circuit must be calibrated and stabilized for correct measuring results. As long as a pickup is in a guitar and does not get in direct contact with high coercive magnets or be exposed to temperatures below -120 degrees Fahrenheit or above +800 degrees Fahrenheit, there is very little chance that the magnets will lose some of their magnetism. If you degauss an Alnico magnet in a pickup, the magnet will lose its permeability causing a decrease of inductance in the coil and an increase in decay due to core loss.

There is no mystique in pickups or instruments. They say Antonio Stradivarius took his secret to his grave. There was no secret. The truth is that he selected the best materials, and each instrument was made to perfection by a master craftsman. On the other hand, Guarneri del Gesu made some of the finest violins ever, but in his later years, some of his instruments were of poor quality and have gained little value.

Believe me, a bottle of vinegar will never ripen into a vintage wine.