Pickups With One Conductor

[Big Al]

I purchased a pair of humbuckers off of ebay for a Washburn Dime 333 that I wanted to put back together and sale. I get the Washburn humbuckers and the wiring only has one conductor. No grounding, drain or shielding. Just one stranded wire.
I have not looked inside the pickups to see if this was a bad attempt to extend the lead but is it possible the pickups were manufactured this way? If this is correct, what is done about grounding?

[sully]

Sounds odd to me. Does it have a metal braided covering? If so, that's your ground.

[Big Al]

No braid, just a vinyl(?) outer jacket. Looks like normal hook up wire.

[sully]

Ok, and under the outer jacket, there's no braid covering the hot output wire?

[Big Al]

Nothing other than the conductor strands under the jacket. No foil wrap shielding, no bare drain wire, no smaller wires with the separate jackets. No splicing between the pickup and the lead's end. I carefully removed the outer jacket 1" back from the end just to be sure there were no other wires/conductors. All is there is the outer jacket and the 18-24 strands.
Tonight I will pull the ribbon from around the pickup to see if it is just a hack job trying to add extra lead.

[bratfink]

Could be that you ground it to the casing? Not seen it before but theoretically it would be possible.

[tomanyjacksons]

Sheilded pickguard with these pickups and they grounded them that way. Only thing I can think of. Good luck man.

[toejam]

Sheilded pickguard with these pickups and they grounded them that way. Only thing I can think of. Good luck man.

He says the guitar is a Washburn Dimebag model... they wouldn't have pickguards.

[tomanyjacksons]

Oh, I guess I didn't understand that they were actually Washburn pickups. I thought they were just run or the mill pickups, for the Washburn.