Bill Lawrence L500XL?

[Iced Dragon]

Some rumours are going on about fake BL pups circulating...Now I was wondering, my PCS Dinky should have come with a BL L500XL as someone on this board said a couple of years ago(on the old forum, jackson site).
I didn't like the pup, too bright/thin and had it replaced by a SD Distortion.
Now to get to the point, did the Dinky come with an original BL or not?
This is exactly like the one that came with the Dinky:

on the back, Bill Lawrence is kind of imprinted in the plastic case and has a round yellow sticker with a kind of F (it could also be a chinese/japanese character) written on it.

then I found this:

seems like the blades are like almost twice as thick? And there's like a deeper space where both coils join (next to the screws)

this is a pick of the BL site:

thicker blades. Deeper space?

Or am I totally mistaken here??? Were there different editions of the pup? The guitar was made in '94.

Can't believe Jackson would put fake pups in their guitars. Not deliberately anyway!!

This is a guitar of the same series as mine:


thanks

[model1]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

you forgot the german OBLs
it´s just another sort of them
they have no round edges but are rectangular
have extra thick blades and read just "OBL" (located where the EMG is on EMGs)
have open solderpionts at the baseplate, where you can solder what fits your needs (hum, split, parallel/series)
and they have thy type of pup written in white edding on the baseplate (like 500XL or 900XL...)
and "made in Germany" printed on the baseplate
lets make this an OBL thread...
i have a 500XL like yours(roundedged with thin blades) too but its printed "Bill Lawrence USA" on top of the bridgeside coil
andy

[Iced Dragon]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

you mean this one?

[pagemalicious]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

I think i have a XL500 too. It looks excatly like the one at the top of this page. It too sounded too thin. I've always wondered if they were fake? [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[model1]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

exactly this is what i know to be USA OBLs
andy

[agresivo]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

Last year, I ordered one of the originals from www.billlawrence.com. After a wait time of almost 6 months I received the pickup and didn't like it. It sounded too thin and trebly and didn't have that much gain, although it was really clear sounding (no mud at all). I had a Duncan Distortion to replace it and I'm happy with it.

[Iced Dragon]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

well, did it look like one of the above?
Btw, the BL site does mention to use a 500k pot with the L500XL, while the one used in my Dinky is a 250k pot. (500k volume pot though)

[charvel750]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

I don't believe there are true "fake" Lawrence pickups. I think somehow that name was bought by another maker. Stew Mac sells the "fakes" but doesn't refer to them exactly as Bill Lawrence.

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

I knew Stew-Mac sold "Lawrence" pickups but I don't see them on the Stew-Mac site any more. I do see them in my old catalog though.

[RacerX]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

The Bill Lawrence company split off, now there are 2 (in addition to the Stew Mac versions). Bill Lawrence is not the dude's real name; he's a guitarist originally from Germany named Willi Lorenz Stich. The other BL co is run by Willi's former business partner, EZ Wajcman. See

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/BLFAKEALERT.htm

for Willi's side of the story.

[RacerX]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

OK, I found EZ Wajcman's side. It is *very* detailed and goes into the history of Willi, EZ, the BL company, and their financial problems that led to the split and the current controversy.

http://billlawrenceusa.com/swampkaster/history.htm

If anybody is interested in a BL product I suggest that you read both links that I supplied, and maybe this one too:

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guita.../L-500-01.html

[charvelguy]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

A wellspring of useful factoids he is, he is.... [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]
This is pretty interesting stuff for Lawrence pup owners.
I too find the same complaint in them in being rather top endish.

[j2379]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

all those picks are the fake ones, the ones jackson used are not the good ones. ive had a few old BLs late70's early 80's ones & they sound great. tho i prefer the 500L to the 500XL

[RacerX]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

[ QUOTE ]
all those picks are the fake ones,

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the pics in the early part of this thread are the Wajcman pups, made with the original tooling. The "fake" BLs were the Stew Mac ones.

[xenophobe]

Re: Bill Lawrence L500XL?

So literally, there are two different entities producing pickups that are both marketed with the same name, but the quality is different? [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]