Single coil or humbucker


Is this a single or a humbucker?

1 Like

Does it appear to be stacked from the side?

1 Like



I have a shot showing the side of the coil. Also, I have a shot with the cover on.

1 Like

Really looks like a single coil to me, with no stack and only 3 wires. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in

1 Like

It’s out of my 1974 Harmony H906. I was thinking that it was a 2 conductor with a ground till today. When I decided to pull the cover off. Then I was thinking of what I’ve been doing.

1 Like

Looks like a humbucker to me; 3 wires doesn’t make sense for a single coil.

Looking at winding, honestly looks like fakebucker, but that doesnt explain three wires :sweat_smile:

Hopefully someone more knowledgable hops on this.

1 Like

I totally agree

1 Like

Yeah Harmony was well known for theirs fakebuckers pups which they put into jazz style basses.

3 Likes

Yeah the winding is kind of suspect but I don’t know why a single coil would have three wires, while that’s not uncommon for humbuckers.

2 Likes

Do you have info how many wires did Gretsch Junior pups have? From all that drama with Lobster about single coil/humbucker.

1 Like

Is that some kind of tape wound around the coil/coils? If so, you’d have to remove it to get a better view. Could be a split coil.

That’s exactly what I seen as soon as I pulled the cover off. So your saying that I need to pull that off there.

Don’t start tearing it off just yet. I’m no expert, so let’s wait until someone who actually knows about this stuff responds.

1 Like

I have looked on Google for fakebuckers, and the guitar fakebuckers looked identical to what I showed. I didn’t see none for the bass. But, all in all I’m believing they are fakebuckers.

1 Like

Yeah I would easily believe it, but I still wonder why three wires. Maybe one is just for show to make people think it’s a humbucker :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hey @terb, did your fakebuckers have 3 wires or 2 wires?

2 Likes

One way to wire a coil split is by connecting the two “middle” leads of a humbucker and running them to a common point, for example a coil split switch that lets them connect through to the second coil when switched off but grounds them after the first coil when switched on. On 4-wire humbuckers you do this by twisting them together and soldering them to a switch; on 3-wire, the connection is internal and you just run the single lead to a switch.

2 Likes


This is how I’m going wire these two potentometers. I already have two dpdt slide switches. Then I’ll go from there.

4 Likes

Ahh yeah, there you go. That’s basically what I was describing above as a common case for three-wire humbuckers. On some humbuckers, the “white wire” connection on the right in that diagram is not made internally and comes out as two separate wires, for a 4-wire. I’ve also seen a 5-wire (for an extra ground/cable shield I think? Not sure.) The last one I wired myself was 5-wire.

3 Likes