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I got three of them. One of those I gave to my grandson. Gretsch and Randy had a charity auction years ago. A friend of mine tipped me off to the event. He got one. I put bids on 3 and got them all. They are essentially acoustic Super Eagles with floating pups. Together we got the first 4 Synchromatics. I kept two blondes and had a single coil pickup put into a Heritage floating casing made by one of the Heritage guys.

Shucks

Agreed. I don't doubt the pickups being Seth Lovers or not. I'm also confident they are genuine Duncans. Counterfeits don't sound as good as these do. I think one is regular after market production line and the other is OEM. Normal spec for the bridge is 8.1 - 8.3, so this one is still within the +/- 5% tolerance range.

Doesn't seem wrong for Seth Lovers. They're usually around 8k ish. I can't remember if they have the same impedance bridge and neck, or slightly more winds on the bridge. I was thinking they were the same. They're in the ballpark anyway. The original PAF were the same, neck or bridge.

That clear tubing over the braid might be magnifying it, hard to tell IMO For the record I just checked some other PAF style pups I have: JS Moore: 7.3k neck, 7.8k bridge Throbak Mick Taylor: 8.3k neck, 8.0k bridge SD's according to that chart: Seth Lover 7.2k neck, 8.1k bridge alnico ii pro is 7.6k neck, 7.85k bridge

If the lead was too short and used in a different installation, a new one could be attached and any broken wires inside removed. If you look at the braiding, at least in the pic shown, the braiding appears larger than the other

Didn’t notice that before. Now that I look closer I think you might be right. Whatever the reason for it, still sounds amazing.

It appears the pup described as being a bridge Seth Lover has been opened and resoldered

Yes was going to reply the same. Lollar makes great pickups!

The original 50's Gibson pups weren't sorted by neck/bridge were they? I thought they just grabbed pups out of the bin & neck/bridge were arbitrary, when they were assembled

I just checked this chart, I thought the bridge of a Seth was around 7.8 kohm but I guess I am mistaken: it says 8.1 kohm https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/pickup-comparison-chart I must be thinking of the alnico ii pro, which is also a great pickup & one of my faves. I was recently messing with a set of those & the newer Slash signature pups, which are based on the alnico ii pro.

curious why you think this? Bridge is labelled SH55B = Seth Lover bridge Neck is SH55N = Seth Lover neck

I bet it sounds great with Seth Lovers. I had 59's in a 535 & changed them out, preferred unpotted pickups like Seths

Haven't exactly followed this thread, but would say the bridge pup is either underwound or a neck pickup.

Neck is coming in at 7.23k and the bridge is 7.82k

Just curious if you can read the ohms of the pickups? Something strikes me odd about the bridge, like maybe it just got a sticker. I think SD keeps a database of the Seth Lover pickups and can recall the DCR based on the serial number sticker on it.

That’s an old picture, I didn’t actually find it, but I found the old picture. Lol.

100% right on the pickups. I noticed that oddity also. Here is a close up of the neck pickup. Interesting observation on the ' vs 1. Never thought of that. Being hand written, that makes perfect sense. I heard back from Ren at Heritage. Unfortunately, they don't have the original build order so we'll never know for sure, but I think you are right about owner mods. Probably left the factory with 59s as they are more common and then swapped to the Seth Lovers later. One of these days when I feel adventurous I may pop one or two of the control pots out to see if the solder joints look original or not. For me, the history of this one is more of a curiosity thing than anything else. This would still be one of my favorite guitars of all time because it is just that good. You know every once in a while you notice something special the second you put your hands on it? Thats this one. I was very fortunate to stumble across it .

The pickups are little odd. Usually, the Seth Lover set has a smooth base plate, a sticker in the middle with a rubber stamp serial number, and the blue "Seth E Lover / Seymour Duncan" signature stamp over it. Then there's the little model number and date sticker by the leg. If you look at the photos here at Sweetwater, they have an image of a 2016 Seth Lover https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SH55n4NKL--seymour-duncan-sh-55n-seth-lover-4-conductor-pickup-nickel-neck Usually what they look like. Looks like you have a bridge with the embossed "Seymour Duncan" logo pressed into it, no rubber-stamp sticker and no blue signature. But the neck (fuzzy background) looks more like I'd expect. I think the H-535 '06 is actually "106". Which makes sense if it was part of special run or something. Perhaps the internal sticker has been lost to the winds. It is just a paper decal, a dose of humidity or bad luck might loosen it. Or someone picked it out, or who knows on a 9-year old guitar. I think you got one someone's mildly modified. The blonde 2001 with HRW pickups I own, I found a couple of years ago at a shop that had it marked as a 2020 for some weird reason. It was pristine, with the original Schaller hardware. It had "the sound" one wants from a 535. Had to have it. I later found it had the waviest fretboard to escape the factory. Neck perfectly straight, fretboard like a roller-coaster, though all the frets were level. Some were brand new tall, and some were leveled down to .027" tall. Eventually I pulled all the frets, leveled the rosewood, then refretted it myself with medium jumbo, which means the nibs had to go, then put Faber hardware. So, the moral of that story is you never know what someone does to them in the field. What counts is how good it is. My 98 H150 I bought used when it was 2-3 years old, from the original selling dealer. (Buffalo Brothers, who were a big Heritage dealer long ago). They ordered the run with this spec, and took this one back in trade from the original purchaser. The SD59's in it are OEM ones that SD sold to manufacturers back then. No stickers and a little different stamping on the back. So definitely original.

Way to go Brent!

Thanks! It is a sweet one and plays like a dream. I was lucky to stumble on it especially since it was shipped from out of state. This is my 3rd Heritage and it is by far the best.

That is a bit odd with the '06 the serial # looks like AE 06502 So maybe it refers to the 06 in the serial Hardware gets changed all the time. So who knows what the gtr left the factory with Congrats that is a nice 535!

AE definitely means that it's a 2014 not a 2006. In 06 they were stamping the serial number and they started with W ( have a 2006. On mine, the W is above the number. I think they had to get a new stamp as the old one was wearing out). They didn't start hand writing numbers until later. It's hard to say what the '06 designates, and don't know they'll have any special info regarding it's specs. Sometimes Ren or Jim would remember special orders, but if you built a few thousand guitars over 25 years, you wouldn't remember every one. I don't know that they kept a computer database, although by 2015 they may have well converted. If I remember the first two numbers are the days working backwards from Dec 31, and the last two is the number of the guitar issued that day. That would make it the second guitar of Monday Oct 27th 2014. The Seth Lovers could easily been owner changed, or factory installed. It's also possible that the paper label either wasn't installed or came loose. Still, they are of a close date to the guitar serial. I don't think it would be worth the time to pull the pots just to look at date codes.

Agreed. I would think this doesn't sound quite right either, but as you can see in the pics, this is was it has. Maybe they did something different on the H150's? The pickups could be a later mod and honestly I'm trying to avoid pulling the pots out to check the codes. That is such a pain on these and with my luck I'll go through all that just to find the solder covering the code! LOL.

One more so you can get the full view from the front with the headstock logo.