Silly question... Why 'Franz' pickups

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Thanks JP and Walter.

My premise is based on circumstantial evidence at best. I hope to get a piece of information to prove it either way.

When I bought the wire, I thought it would be good stock for various projects that I had in mind. There were many gauges and coatings, with a good percentage of it being 42 gauge. This got me thinking to give pickup winding a shot. All of this stuff happened before I found the 3 pickups, which were in a box of misc. coils, terminal strips, etc.

Of the 3 pickups, 2 are single coil and the other was wider with a single row of pole pieces offset from the center. This leads me to believe that it is a humbucker. Anyone know anything about Fransch humbuckers?

One of the single coil pickups was bulging and had obvious corrosion between the cover and bottom plate. This gave me an excuse to drilled out the rivets and disassemble it. I found the following: a short fat coil wound on a stiff paper like bobbin. a steel core, two pairs of thin magnets with a thin L-shaped chrome retainer on each pair of magnets. Stupidly, I didn't note the orientation of the magnets before disassembly. I may have to disassemble the other to get the polarity right.

The label on some of the spools of 42 ga says that they were made by Essex Wire Corporation. Also on the label: Single Nylon VAR. Oil Free Date: 1955. Others, made by The Universal Wire & Cable Co. just say Plain Enamel Wire. Also some by General Wire just say 42PE. There may be others, but I haven’t had time to go thru them all.

Ed
 
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Oops, forget what I said in my previous post about the alleged humbucker. It is the same width as the others and has 2 rows of adjustable pole pieces, which are located at the extreme edges of the pickup.
Sorry, I confused it with another pickup.

Ed
 

jp

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Hi Ed,
Don't know anything about Franz HBs, unfortunately. Do the guts of your deconstructed pickup look like this?

1.jpg
2.jpg
 

teleharmonium

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That's great information you've shared, Dokker.

The pickups in your pictures are a type I've seen on some Premier guitars. I have a bass version of it, unfortunately it has an open coil and needs to be rewound.

I would love to see your pickups on a guitar some day, if you need any suggestions for a project or custom build I'm sure we can throw out some ideas.
 

jp

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Yeah, thanks for the pics Dokker. There appear to be similarities in the magnet/adjustment screw assembly. It'd be interesting to hear how they sound.
 

jazzman

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Wow this is some very interesting information! On the first page was a reply with the thought that there could be some connection to the Epiphone tone spectrum pickups, and the premier pickups.
For sure the premier pickups are Fransch pickups, though the pole pieces are offset. I'd LOVE to see the inside of that pickup to see how it differs from the normal guild variant.
On the subject of Epiphone...I wonder. I have noticed a similarity between them though it's a small one. The lead wires that come out of the pickup coil that attach to the leads on both the Epis and the Fransch pickups are a thin wire wrapped in green thread. That's the only similarity between them.
Now there is a matter of speculation involved here, but if you'll indulge me on this it might prove interesting.
Guild was Founded by Alfred, and George Mann. I'm guessing that it was more George who wanted to start Guild since he had just lost his longtime position with Epiphone after the Company reorganized in '52 in response to the factory strike.
As mentioned in the Guild Book, a handful of former Epi employees went to work for guild, most impressive to me was Henry. Henry was a man who was quite elderly at the time and had been with Epiphone since Anastasios started the company.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, since 'business is business' I think it's TOTALLY reasonable to think that Frank Schultz could have worked at Epiphone in their "electar lab" possibly making pickups (Epiphone did make their own pickups), or perhaps he was just a good friend of George Mann, and George wanted to send business to his friend.
Obviously George was not around for much longer after the start of the company, but perhaps since a good thing was going, or perhaps there was a contract to buy pickups from them for so many years (again I'm just speculating here) maybe that's why they used those pickups for so long until Gilbert convinced Guild to switch to DeArmond.

Those are my insane ramblings on the subject. Thoughts?
Also on the subject of DeArmond, I've given thought to trying to research a book on DeArmond. That would be a great book, with tons of pictures of all the various pickups they made, company history etc....but that's a thought for another day.
 

teleharmonium

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jazzman said:
Wow this is some very interesting information! On the first page was a reply with the thought that there could be some connection to the Epiphone tone spectrum pickups, and the premier pickups.
For sure the premier pickups are Fransch pickups, though the pole pieces are offset. I'd LOVE to see the inside of that pickup to see how it differs from the normal guild variant.
On the subject of Epiphone...I wonder. I have noticed a similarity between them though it's a small one. The lead wires that come out of the pickup coil that attach to the leads on both the Epis and the Fransch pickups are a thin wire wrapped in green thread. That's the only similarity between them.
Now there is a matter of speculation involved here, but if you'll indulge me on this it might prove interesting.
Guild was Founded by Alfred, and George Mann. I'm guessing that it was more George who wanted to start Guild since he had just lost his longtime position with Epiphone after the Company reorganized in '52 in response to the factory strike.
As mentioned in the Guild Book, a handful of former Epi employees went to work for guild, most impressive to me was Henry. Henry was a man who was quite elderly at the time and had been with Epiphone since Anastasios started the company.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, since 'business is business' I think it's TOTALLY reasonable to think that Frank Schultz could have worked at Epiphone in their "electar lab" possibly making pickups (Epiphone did make their own pickups), or perhaps he was just a good friend of George Mann, and George wanted to send business to his friend.
Obviously George was not around for much longer after the start of the company, but perhaps since a good thing was going, or perhaps there was a contract to buy pickups from them for so many years (again I'm just speculating here) maybe that's why they used those pickups for so long until Gilbert convinced Guild to switch to DeArmond.

Those are my insane ramblings on the subject. Thoughts?
Also on the subject of DeArmond, I've given thought to trying to research a book on DeArmond. That would be a great book, with tons of pictures of all the various pickups they made, company history etc....but that's a thought for another day.

There's another reason to believe the Epi Tone Spectrum pickups might have been made by Fransch; there are some other Fransch pickups I have seen on some early NY made Premier hollowbody guitars and basses that have exactly the same kind of 'frame' ring around the pickups as the Tone Spectrum pickups do. The Tone Spectrums have a different covering on the covers themselves inside the frame, but they certainly appear to have a common origin.
 

jazzman

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That's interesting! I'd like to see pictures of those premier pickups....Hmmmmm I do recall reading in the House of Stathopoulo book though, and interview with Billy Bauer. He said he spent a day at the factory talking about his guitar with the workers and he didn't like the feedback and they thought it was the pickup. So he said they'd wind it, take some wire off, try it with more etc. They couldn't get it quite to where he wanted it and Orphie said "SEE?! You think it's so easy, you think it should be this way or that, but in truth it's really hard!"
I think Epi did make their own pickups, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did have common origins. Perhaps we'll never know.

On another note. I was looking over the Schulz patent. I think it's really interesting that the US patent office granted him a patent on a pickup that was clearly similar to a Gibson p-90. Did Gibson patent the p-90??? The construction is not much different. Weird!
 
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Hey Guys,

Look what I found on the side of a wood crate of copper tubing:

Box5.jpg


Other than the pickups, this is the first thing I found with word Fransch on it. It's enough for me to
believe my theory on the origin of the Fransch pickup.

Also, I found pictures of a 63 M65, a 60's M65, and a 64 T100 that appear to use the pickups that I have.
All three have a black plastic mounting ring, which I don't have. I have pics of the guitars that I can post if
anyone is interested.

Ed Sharpe
 

bieke

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wow, this thread really delivers
8)

I'd like to add the drawing from the Schultz patent US2911871 that Ed discovered

Franz_PU_patent.jpg
 

Walter Broes

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Weird he got a patent for those though - even in the drawing, that looks almost exactly the same as a Gibson P90 pickup...!
 

caveman

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Really great to see a piece of history uncovered by our forum. This thread almost reads like a novel ! Thanks for the amazing contributions, bieke (are you the Belgian guy from the Harmony Central Effects- forum ? ) and Dokker.
 

jazzman

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I don't think the p-90 was ever patented. Epiphone held the patent for adjustable pole pieces on a pickup, so from there you can't really patent a P-90 cause it's not much different than anything else.
I think the reason Schultz got the patent was that his design had the metal piece that the pole pieces screwed into which he claimed helped to focus the magnetic field. Interesting for sure!
 
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