What is your favorite after-market vintage black guard style telecaster pick-up set?

[Esquire Bob]

Couldn’t seem to get a straight answer when I “searched “ this topic.
I have an awesome master built telecaster, but the pickups are kinda bland.
Id love to know about any aftermarket boutique telecaster pick ups or builders you were impressed with. Thanks

 

[El Tele Lobo]

Don Mare Hot Bakelites are the best I've ever played and I've tried many great pickups. Worth the price and the wait.

 

[JesterR]

Bare Knuckle - Blackguard Flat '50 are cool, if you want some hotter pickups.

 

[Maguchi]

Fender Custom Shop '51 NoCaster Tele set. Only a couple a hundy for the pair and they're my favorite Tele sound. Bridge is ballsy and clear but not piercing. Neck is smooth and round but with string separation on chords. Middle position is very usable on riffs, chords and some leads.

 

[Kmaxbrady]

I love my set of Lollar vintage Ts.

 

[cousinpaul]

I'm using Fender OV's. I can echo Maguchi's comments.

 

[TunedupFlat]

I am a fan of the Bareknuckle Flat 52's and the Fender Nocaster pickups.

About the same price, and definitely different flavors on the neck pickup.

 

[Ricky D.]

Fender Original Vintage. They are the standard to which you compare vintage Tele pickups.

The actual pickups from back in the day were not consistent. Fender compared a bunch of sets from then and picked out the set they thought sounded the best. They then reverse engineered it to get the OV52 design.

It’s a great pickup, and not expensive. I got mine for $52 on eBay.

 

[Geoff738]

Fred Stuart. But I think he is long retired and used prices are ridonkulous.

Ron Ellis. I believe he is still making pickups, but I believe a lengthy wait and also not inexpensive.

So I’m not much help probably.

Cheers,
Geoff

 

[dannyh]

I’m not sure I know what exactly constitutes a black guard style pickup set, but as far as vintage style pickups go, I’m a big fan of Lollar Vintage Ts.

Best of luck in your search!

 

[Chicago Matt]

I'm loving Bootstrap's Extra Crispy set. Transition style 50/51 pickups with flat pole A3 magnets. 7.8k bridge and 7.2k neck. Twangy and bright but fat with no ice pick. $50 for the set.

 

[Vibroluxer]

11 replies and they are all different!

I'll 2nd the 51 NoCaster set and you if you search this site and the web you will not find anything except the very best things about Bootstrap.

I have both and id pick Bootstrap.

 

[63 vibroverb]

By blackguard, I’m assuming you mean some kind of A3 bridge pickup wound hot with 43awg wire?

All great suggestions from the posts above. Mojotone’s Broadcaster and ‘52 Tele sets are both awesome options. One set offers an A5 neck and the other an A3 neck depending on the flavor you want.

 

[Bruxist]

Nocaster Holy Grail Lion - Tele®/Esquire® bridge pickup. 9700 turns of 43AWG over A3 rod magnets. That original classic earliest vintage 1950/51 Fender® Esquire®, Broadcaster, Nocaster tone is back and fattened up with a higher coil wire turn count to squelch the shrill treble and thicken the midrange. This is the "mistake" pickup, the one where a pickup winder fell asleep at the wheel and added 2000 more coil wire turns. It has that fat vintage tone that we sought back in the day, but could never find ... but we did! It's the Holy Grail of the earliest Fender® bridge pickups. Twangy, thick, clean, clear, with no ice-pick-in-the-ear.

 

[oregomike]

Couldn’t seem to get a straight answer when I “searched “ this topic.
I have an awesome master built telecaster, but the pickups are kinda bland.
Id love to know about any aftermarket boutique telecaster pick ups or builders you were impressed with. Thanks

This is back in Jan, so you might have picked up some already, but https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/vintage-hot-tele/

 

[Timbresmith1]

Bare Knuckle - Blackguard Flat '50 are cool, if you want some hotter pickups.

I second this.

 

[Timbresmith1]

The Duncan Antiquity Broadcaster set are quite good, also.
Don’t sleep on Arcane sets, either. Usually In stock and reasonable for booteek

 

[ScottTunes]

I just replaced Fender Original '52s with Seymour Duncan's Vintage Broadcaster set. I've used them in previous builds too.

 

[Sax-son]

Nocaster Holy Grail Lion - Tele®/Esquire® bridge pickup. 9700 turns of 43AWG over A3 rod magnets. That original classic earliest vintage 1950/51 Fender® Esquire®, Broadcaster, Nocaster tone is back and fattened up with a higher coil wire turn count to squelch the shrill treble and thicken the midrange. This is the "mistake" pickup, the one where a pickup winder fell asleep at the wheel and added 2000 more coil wire turns. It has that fat vintage tone that we sought back in the day, but could never find ... but we did! It's the Holy Grail of the earliest Fender® bridge pickups. Twangy, thick, clean, clear, with no ice-pick-in-the-ear.

Yup! I got two of them. Killer!

 

[vespa1]

Fender Custom Shop '51 NoCaster Tele set. Only a couple a hundy for the pair and they're my favorite Tele sound. Bridge is ballsy and clear but not piercing. Neck is smooth and round but with string separation on chords. Middle position is very usable on riffs, chords and some leads.

Same. I put them in my first Tele (American Standard) about 15 years ago. Have had several others, including OVs, Don Mare's, Cavaliers, and others, and the NoCasters are still my favorite.