Question about my National Console

[Chris Harwood]

My recently acquired guitar came stripped of its electronics...which greatly lowered the price. I have an assortment of pickups I've been having fun trying out as replacements.

My question is why would someone want to scalp these pickups? They're huge for one thing, old 8 pole and I can't imagine them fitting nor improving the sound of another guitar.
I mean Valco even hid them with pickup covers...unless you call that a hand rest that would break like egg shells!

It just got me thinking. These guitars are so basic and crudely made, but for all that, it has a nice sound, especially as I play with new wiring and pickups.
IDK...it's kinda like grabbing the grill off an old Ford Escort.

[Noah Miller]

I would not call a National console crudely made. Those things are still around by the zillion and the only common issue is crumbling tuners (like most Klusons).

I doubt anyone scalped the pickups for some other instrument. Far more likely, they wanted their National to sound like a Fender or Gibson and threw away the originals in favor of who-knows-what.

The covers were not really intended to hide the pickups but to provide a hand rest, just like Gibson, Rickenbacker, Fender, and countless other manufacturers did. A lot of the covers got lost over the years because players often didn't use them, but they're not particularly fragile.

[Chris Harwood]

The clear plastic covers were especially known to crack...and yeah...I acknowledged the hand rest.

By crude...if you took one apart you see the routing that looks done with paddle bits and just overall finish work is horrible especially compared to modern CNC machines. There's nothing "hand crafted" worthy about them.
I don't expect wood and metal parts to disintegrate over the years and age has nothing to do with quality craftsmanship.
Don't get me wrong...it sounds great and I think a great player. And yes..when music instruments get to be 70 years old, I can see people wanting to replace damaged or non working parts with something as close as original as they can. I personally think new Klusons are better than the vintage ones...and at about 1/4th the going price.

[Noah Miller]

The routing work was no worse than any other builder of the time. It wasn't supposed to be seen, so who cared? You're right that CNC fabrication can be neater, but judging the build quality by the control cavity is pretty ridiculous. Welcome to the world of vintage instruments!

And if you want to talk about cracking plastic covers, Valco has nothing on Gibson.

[Chris Harwood]

I work a side hustle as a sailboat mechanic and much of my work is covered by the finish work. I'd be embarrassed to have some carpentry taken apart to reveal sloppy fiberglass work or saving pennies on a couple of strokes of a paint brush. I grew up when JBL studio monitors were considered a studio staple and were observed for higher build qualities, because when you opened them up, you saw great care was taken on the interiors as well. Its kinda like fancy wallpaper aint gonna cover up lousy house wiring on 24" stud centers.
But I understand what they had to deal with and totally agree with most of your comments ...but also realize the creations that were made in that era as well.
I also grew up buying and learning on now what are "vintage" instruments. I had some Gibson in the 60's (guitars) that were horrible and no way would stay in tune.
Lemme just say this. I think vintage has its' appeal because of the inconsistancies of similar items, from one to another. That's why one 50's Les Paul can speak to you and the next one doesn't. Same with these older pickups. The resistances were all over the place. But that made several pickups (and guitars, etc)just stellar and standing out from the bunch. But nowadays the overall consistency is MUCH better...at the loss of having those "few" just stand out and just be "the one".
PRS guitars is an example I like to use. Overall their build is stellar. The "next" guitar off the line is the same as the one before and the one after...and just fantastically built. However, they probably have the biggest reputation of making "sterile" guitars, that picky pro won't pick up. The few I've played, I can kinda see that. Just gorgeous...but I had money in my wallet ready to come out, but it never did for a PRS.

Any waz...thanks for the comments and I love these discussions. This is a top notch forum for these!

Oh... we don't want to forget Lollar and Seymour Duncan pickups. I'm sure they took what they thought the "best" ever and made exact duplicates with modern updates. (better wire, insulation, etc). But did they find the "best" pup to copy? Apparently, the people that won't touch their Stringmaster replications and gotta have the originals, don't agree that they did.
I guess you can use the same thinking on those $1500 Fender lap steels with the old "Tele" pickups in them.